Scale-up of a high temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell based on polybenzimidazole

Abstract

A high temperature PEM fuel cell stack with a total active area 150 cm 2 has been studied. The PEM technology is based on a polybenzimidazole (PBI) membrane. Cast from a PBI polymer synthesised in our lab, the performance of a three-cell stack was analysed in static and dynamic modes. In static mode, operating at high constant oxygen flow rate ( Q O 2 > 1105 ml O 2 / min ) produces a small decrease on the stack performance. High constant oxygen stoichiometry ( λ O 2 > 3 ) does not produce a decrease on the performance of the stack. There are not differences between operating at constant flow rate of oxygen and constant stoichiometry of oxygen in the stack performance. The effect of operating at high temperature with a pressurization system and operating at higher temperatures are beneficial since the performance of the fuel cell is enhanced. A large shut-down stage produces important performance losses due to the loss of catalyst activity and the loss of membrane conductivity. After 150 h of operation at 0.2 A cm −2, it is observed a very high voltage drop. The phosphoric acid leached from the stack was also evaluated and did not exceed 2% (w/w). This fact suggests that the main degradation mechanism of a fuel cell stack based on polybenzimidazole is not the electrolyte loss. In dynamic test mode, it was observed a rapid response of power and current output even at the lower step-time (10 s). In the static mode at 125 °C and 1 atm, the stack reached a power density peak of 0.29 W cm −2 (43.5 W) at 1 V.