Name – Kartika Sangal

Roll no. - 18171509

 Fuel cell
 Proton exchange fuel cell
 Electrolyte
 Electrode
 Water management
 Heat production
 Operating pressure
 Advantages/Disadvantages/Application
 Fuel cell

 An electrochemical cell that converts chemical energy to electrical energy.

 Can run on either H2,more abundant natural gas (CH4), or any gaseous fuel

 There are different types of fuel cell – SOFC, PEMFC, DMFC, AFC, PAFC, MCFC,.

Proton exchange fuell cell (PEMFC)

 PEMFC is an electrochemical device that produces electrical power through a chemical
reaction between a fuel, such as hydrogen, and an oxidant, such as oxygen.
 As any electrochemical device, the PEMFC consists of ion conducting electrolyte in the form
of solid sandwiched between a cathode and an anode, as described schematically in Figure
1.
 H2 2H+ + 2e-
½O2 + 2H+ +2e- H2O
H2 + ½ O2 H2O

Figure 1. Schematic of a PEMFC

• H2 is the fuel cell for PEMFC.

• Proton exchange polymer (PEM) is used as electrolyte.
• Platinum particle on carbon is used as electrodes.
• At anode a platinum catalyst causes the H2 to split into positive ions (protons) and negatively charged
electrons.
 The basic polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) polymer is sulphonated that is a side chain is added,
ending with sulphonic acid HSO3 .

Feature of nafion
• Highly chemically resistant,
• They are strong (mechanically), and so can be made into
very thin films, down to 50µm.
• They are acidic.
• They can absorb large quantities of water.
• If they are well hydrated, the H+ ions can move quite PTFE
freely within the material – they are good proton conductors.
 The proton conductivity in the electrolyte is directly proportional to the water content.

 The product water that is obtained at the cathode keep the electrolyte at the correct level of hydration.

 Because the membrane electrolyte is so thin, water would diffuse from the cathode side to the anode, and
throughout the whole electrolyte a suitable state of hydration would be achieved without any special difficulty.

Complications

 During the operation of the cell the H+ ions moving from the anode to the cathode pull water molecules with
them. This process is sometimes called electro-osmotic drag.

 At high current densities, the anode side of the electrolyte can become dried out – even if the cathode is well
hydrated.

 Drying effect of air at high temperatures.

 At 60◦C, the air will always dry out the electrodes faster than the water is produced by the H2/O2 reaction.
 Humidify the air, the hydrogen, or both, before they enter the fuel cell to keep the electrolyte well
hydrated.
The different water movements are shown in Figure 3

The water
production
and the
water drag
are both
directly
proportion
al to the
current
 The amount of water vapour in air is given as the ratio of water to other gases – the other
gases being nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide, and others that make up ‘dry air’. This
quantity is variously known as the humidity ratio, absolute humidity, or specific humidity and
is defined as

𝑚𝑤
humidity ratio, ω = 𝑚𝑎

where 𝑚𝑤 is the mass of water present in the sample of the mixture and 𝑚𝑎 is the mass of dry
air. The total mass of the air is 𝑚𝑤 + 𝑚𝑎 .
𝑃
Relative humidity, 𝜑 = 𝑃 𝑤
𝑠𝑎𝑡

𝑃𝑤 is the partial pressure of the water and 𝑃𝑠𝑎𝑡 is the saturated vapour pressure of the water.

 The cause of the complication for PEM fuel cells is that the saturated vapour pressure varies
with temperature in a highly non-linear way –𝑃𝑠𝑎𝑡 increases more and more rapidly at higher
temperatures.
 The result of the rapid rise in 𝑃𝑠𝑎𝑡 is that air that might be only moderately drying, say 70%
relative humidity, at ambient temperature, can be fiercely drying when heated to about 600 C.
 For example, for air at 200 C, relative humidity 70%, the pressure of the water vapour in the
mixture is
𝑃𝑤 =0.70×𝑃𝑠𝑎𝑡
=0.70×2.338
=1.64kPa.
 If this air is then heated to 60◦C, at constant pressure, without adding water, then 𝑃𝑤
will not change, and so the new relative humidity will be
𝑃
relative humidity, φ=𝑃 𝑤
𝑠𝑎𝑡

=1.64/ 19.94 =0.08=8%.

 This would have a catastrophic effect upon polymer electrolyte membranes, which not only
rely totally on a high water content but are also very thin, and so prone to rapid drying out.
 It is sometimes necessary to humidify the gases going into a fuel cell. To do this in a
controlled way it might be important to calculate the mass of water to be added to the air to
achieve a set humidity at any pressure and temperature.

𝑚𝑤 18∗𝑃 𝑤 𝑃
𝜔= = 28.97∗𝑃 = 0.622 𝑃𝑤
𝑚𝑎 𝑎 𝑎
𝑃𝑤
𝑚𝑤 = 0.622 𝑃−𝑃 𝑚𝑎
𝑤

 Higher pressure systems require less added water to achieve the same humidity.

 The humidity should be above about 80% to prevent excess drying, but must be below 100%,
or liquid water would collect in the electrodes.
Consider the exit gas of a fuel cell

𝑃𝑤 no of water molecules
=
𝑃𝑒𝑥𝑖𝑡 total no of molecules

𝑃𝑤 𝑛ሶ 𝑤
=
𝑃𝑒𝑥𝑖𝑡 𝑛ሶ 𝑤 + 𝑛ሶ 𝑂2 + 𝑛ሶ 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑡
𝑛ሶ 𝑤 is the number of moles of water leaving the cell per second,
𝑛ሶ 𝑂2 is the number of moles of oxygen leaving the cell per second,
𝑛ሶ 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑡 is the number of moles of the ‘non-oxygen’ component of air per second,
𝑃𝑤 is the vapour pressure of the water,
and 𝑃𝑒𝑥𝑖𝑡 is the total air pressure at the fuel cell exit.
 Let us take an example. Suppose we have a fuel cell operating with an exit air pressure of 1.1 bar
(=110kPa), slightly above air pressure. The cell temperature is 70◦C, and the air stoichiometry is 2. The
inlet air is of low humidity, and cold, so any inlet water can be ignored.
The relative humidity of the exit air is

The cell could be made more humid by

• Lowering the temperature, which would increase losses.

• Lowering the air flowrate and hence λ, which could be done a little, but would reduce
cathode performance.
• Increasing the pressure, which would take more energy to run the compressor.

If the water content of the inlet air is not negligible, it can be shown that the outlet water
vapour pressure is given by the less simple formula
 Heat produced by a fuel cell, if the product water is evaporated within the cell, is

 With fuel cells below 100W it is possible to use purely convected air to cool the cell and
provide sufficient airflow to evaporate the water, without recourse to any fan.
 For a more compact fuel cell, small fans can be used to blow the reactant and cooling
air through the cell.
Example
 Suppose a fuel cell of power Pe Watts is operating at 50◦C. The average voltage of each cell in
the stack is 0.6V . Let us suppose that cooling air enters the cell at 20◦C and leaves at 50◦C.
Let us also assume that only 40% of the heat generated by the fuel cell is removed by the air
and the rest is radiated or naturally convected from the outer surfaces
 Just 40% of this heat is removed by air, of specific heat capacity cp flowing at a rate of ṁkg s-
1 , and subject to a temperature change ΔT.

 Substitute the values, cp =1004Jkg-1 K-1, Δ T=30K, and Vc =0.6V and we obtain the following
equation for the cooling air flow rate,

 The reactant air flowrate is

 If the reactant air and the cooling air are one and the same, then these two quantities are
equal, and so the two equations can be equated. Cancelling Pe, substituting Vc =0.6V, and
solving for λ we obtain
 At 500 C this gives an exit air humidity of 26%. This is drier than the Sahara desert! It is assuming
that the entry air had a humidity of 70%, so the relative humidity decreases as the air goes
through the cell, and so the proton exchange membrane will quickly dry out.
 The only way to reduce λ, which should be somewhere between 3 and 6 at 50◦C in order to stop
the cell from drying out, is to reduce the air flowing over the electrodes and to have a separate
cooling system.
 The usual way of cooling cells in the range from about 100 to 1000W is to make extra channels in
the bipolar plates through which cooling air can be blown.

Three cells from a stack, with the bipolar plate modified

for air cooling using separate reactant and cooling air.
 Although small PEM fuel cells are operated at normal air pressure, larger fuel cells, of 10kW or more, are
sometimes operated at higher pressures.
 Running a fuel cell at higher pressure will increase the power, but it also involves the expenditure of power,
and there is the cost, weight, and space taken up by the compression equipment.
 The increased pressure raises the exchange current density, which has the apparent effect of lifting the
open circuit voltage (OCV).
 The effect of raising the pressure on cell voltage can be seen from the graph of voltage against current
shown in Figure,

The effect of increasing

pressure on the voltage
current graph of a typical
fuel cell.
 If the pressure is increased from P1 to P2, then there is an increase or gain in voltage

where C is a constant, whose value depends on how the exchange current density i0 is affected
by pressure, and also on R, T, and F.
 Value of C ranges from 0.03 to 0.06V.

Using pure oxygen in place of air

The use of oxygen does markedly improve the performance of a PEM fuel cell.
 The ‘no loss’ open circuit voltage rises because of the increase in the partial pressure of oxygen,
as predicted by the Nernst equation.
 The activation overvoltage reduces because of better use of catalyst sites.

 The limiting current increases, thus reducing the mass transport or concentration overvoltage
losses. This is because of the absence of nitrogen gas, which is a major contributor to this type
of loss at high current densities.
Advantages
 Low temperature leads to quick start-up.

 Solid electrolyte reduces corrosion and electrolyte management problems.

Disadvantages
 Low temperature.

 Sensitive to fuel Typical stack – 1kw to 100 kw

 Waste heat

 Expensive catalyst impurities.

Applications
 Backup power

 Portable power

 Distributed generation

 Transportation
Thank You