Solar-driven polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell for photovoltaic hydrogen production

Abstract

The globe will be obliged to discover and investigate alternate energy sources, as at the current pace of use, fossil fuels will cause an energy catastrophe in the coming future. The energy plight can only be minimized or altogether avoided if the energy industry works to develop innovative methods of extracting energy from non-conventional sources such as solar, geothermal, ocean-thermal, biomass, hydro and wind energy. Fuel cell technology is one such renewable energy technology that is proliferating all over the world. Fuel cells will be an important future source of power and energy generation. Various advantages of fuel cells have led many researchers to work towards this technology. Different types of fuel cells are used for energy and power generation. Among all other contenders, Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) has wide acceptance worldwide due to certain innate advantages. The current study aims to know about the characteristics and primacy of the PEM fuel cells, which involves both experimental and theoretical observations based on Hydro Genius Professional - a laboratory scale model. The experiments were performed to investigate the characteristics of a fuel cell through renewable energy-driven power sources, mainly solar power. However, the last part of the article deals with a solar panel's voltage-current and power-current characteristics. Further, the optimization of parameters for extracting maximum power from the circuit is also analyzed. The research further includes the determination of Faraday and energy efficiencies for an electrolyzer and a fuel cell system, which are around 95.75% and 98%, for Faraday efficiency calculations and 90% and 45% for energy efficiency calculations in an electrolyzer and fuel cell system respectively. The research contributes to a better understanding of renewable fuel cell technology and elaborates on the practical applications of hydrogen generation using photovoltaic systems and their integration with fuel cell systems. The study will also concentrate on fuel cell technology's environmental benefits and green innovation upfront.