Performance evaluation of an air-breathing high-temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cell

• Published in: Applied energy Vol. 160; pp. 146 - 152
• Main Authors: Wu, Qixing, Li, Haiyang, Yuan, Wenxiang, Luo, Zhongkuan, Wang, Fang, Sun, Hongyuan, Zhao, Xuxin, Fu, Huide
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 15.12.2015
• Subjects: Air breathing; Durability; High temperature; PEMFC; Phosphoric acid; Polybenzimidazole; Phosphoric acid; Durability; PEMFC; Air breathing; High temperature; Polybenzimidazole
• ISSN: 0306-2619; 1872-9118
• DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.09.042

[Display omitted] •An air-breathing HT-PEMFC was designed and evaluated experimentally.•The peak power density of the air-breathing HT-PEMFC was 220.5mWcm−2 at 200°C.•Break-in behavior and effects of temperature and anodic stoichiometry were studied.•The effect of cell orientations on the performance was investigated.•The degradation rate of the air-breathing HT-PEMFC was around 58.32μVh−1. The air-breathing proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is of great interest in mobile power sources because of its simple system design and low parasitic power consumption. Different from previous low-temperature air-breathing PEMFCs, a high-temperature PEMFC with a phosphoric acid doped polybenzimidazole (PBI) membrane as the polymer electrolyte is designed and investigated under air-breathing conditions. The preliminary results show that a peak power density of 220.5mWcm−2 at 200°C can be achieved without employing any water managements, which is comparable to those with conventional Nafion® membranes operated at low temperatures. In addition, it is found that with the present cell design, the limiting current density arising from the oxygen transfer limitation is around 700mAcm−2 even at 200°C. The short-term durability test at 200mAcm−2 and 180°C reveals that all the cells exhibit a gradual decrease in the voltage along with a rise in the internal resistance. The degradation rate of continuous operation is around 58.32μVh−1, which is much smaller than those of start/stop cycling operations.