Poison mitigation strategies for the use of impure hydrogen in electrochemical hydrogen pumps and fuel cells

Abstract

A new approach to mitigate against common poisons present in hydrogen for electrochemical hydrogen compressors and fuel cells is introduced. This approach uses the inclusion of ozone in the oxygen bleed as a poison mitigation strategy (online cleaning). This ozone treatment is also used to recover systems which have already been degraded by exposure to poisons (offline treatment). The different poisons studied are representative of products from a steam methane reformer (SMR), hydrogen contaminated by H2S, and an SMR feed contaminated with H2S. The efficacy of the cleaning methodology on the performance of an electrochemical hydrogen pump (EHP) and polymer electrolyte fuel cell are evaluated by comparing to the performance achieved when using pure hydrogen. Gas compositions containing ozone were more effective than O2 alone in cleaning poisons such as COad and Sad from the Pt and PtRu catalysts, thus, increasing the current densities and efficiencies of the EHP and polymer fuel cell. For the more severely poisoned streams, inclusion of ozone doubles the achievable current density. The mechanisms of catalyst regeneration using O2 and O2/O3 bleeds, following COad and Sad poisoning, involved both electrochemical and heterogeneous oxidation.