Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell with Humidifying Zone

›› 2010, Vol. 18 ›› Issue (5): 856-862.

• PRODUCT ENGINEERING AND CHEMICAL TECHNOLOGY • Previous Articles Next Articles

Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell with Humidifying Zone

LÜWeizhong^1,2, LIU Zhixiang², WANG Cheng², MAO Zongqiang^1,2, ZHANG Milin¹

1. College of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China;
2. Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

Received:2010-06-02 Revised:2010-08-18 Online:2010-10-28 Published:2010-10-28
Supported by:
Supported by the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (2008AA05Z104)

Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell with Humidifying Zone

吕维忠^1,2, 刘志祥², 王诚², 毛宗强^1,2, 张密林¹

1. College of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China;
2. Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

通讯作者: LIU Zhixiang,E-mail:liuzhixiang@tsinghua.edu.cn
基金资助:
Supported by the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (2008AA05Z104)

Abstract

Abstract: Water management is of great importance to maintain performance and durability of proton exchange membrane fuel cells. This paper presents a novel proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell with a humidification zone in the membrane electrode assembly (MEA) of each cell, in which the moisture of the cathode exhaust gas could transfer through the membrane to humidify anode or cathode dry gas. With a simple model, the relative humidity (RH) of the dry air exhaust from a membrane humidifier with 100% RH stream as a counter flow is calculated to be 60.0%, which is very close to the experimental result (62.2%). Fuel cell performances with hydrogen humidifying, air humidifying and no humidifying are compared at 50, 60 and 70℃ and the results indicate that humidifying is necessary and the novel design with humidifying zone in MEA is effective to humidify dry reactants. The hydrogen humidifying shows better performance in short term, while water recovered is limited and the stability is not as good as air humidifying. It is recommended that both air and hydrogen should be humidified with proper design of the humidifying zones in MEA and plates.

Key words: proton exchange membrane, fuel cell, humidifying zone

摘要： Water management is of great importance to maintain performance and durability of proton exchange membrane fuel cells. This paper presents a novel proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell with a humidification zone in the membrane electrode assembly (MEA) of each cell, in which the moisture of the cathode exhaust gas could transfer through the membrane to humidify anode or cathode dry gas. With a simple model, the relative humidity (RH) of the dry air exhaust from a membrane humidifier with 100% RH stream as a counter flow is calculated to be 60.0%, which is very close to the experimental result (62.2%). Fuel cell performances with hydrogen humidifying, air humidifying and no humidifying are compared at 50, 60 and 70℃ and the results indicate that humidifying is necessary and the novel design with humidifying zone in MEA is effective to humidify dry reactants. The hydrogen humidifying shows better performance in short term, while water recovered is limited and the stability is not as good as air humidifying. It is recommended that both air and hydrogen should be humidified with proper design of the humidifying zones in MEA and plates.

关键词: proton exchange membrane, fuel cell, humidifying zone

LÜWeizhong, LIU Zhixiang, WANG Cheng, MAO Zongqiang, ZHANG Milin. Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell with Humidifying Zone[J]. , 2010, 18(5): 856-862.

吕维忠, 刘志祥, 王诚, 毛宗强, 张密林. Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell with Humidifying Zone[J]. , 2010, 18(5): 856-862.

References

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Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell with Humidifying Zone

Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell with Humidifying Zone

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