Hydrogen pumping effect induced by fuel starvation in a single cell of a PEM fuel cell stack at galvanostatic operation

Xiao Guang Yang, Qiang Ye*, Ping Cheng

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

36 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In a proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack, a single cell is potentially subjected to voltage reversal under fuel starvation conditions, which is extremely harmful to its durability. In this work, we develop a two-dimensional computational model to investigate the current and potential distributions in a single cell under these voltage reversal conditions. It is found that most of hydrogen under these conditions is oxidized in a narrow region close to the fuel-inlet, and the anode area before hydrogen depletion can be characterized into an activation limited region and a mass-transport limited region. Meanwhile, an unexpected hydrogen evolution phenomenon is discovered in the cathode catalyst layer (CCL) adjacent to the fuel inlet, owing to the imbalance between the localized ultrahigh hydrogen oxidation current density in the anode and the lower limiting current density of oxygen reduction reaction in the adjacent CCL. Furthermore, the evolved hydrogen gas is also found to be oxidized nearby due to the steep variation of electrolyte potential in the CCL, indicating the coexistence of hydrogen evolution, hydrogen oxidation and oxygen reduction within the micron-scale thickness of CCL, which significantly adds to the complexity of the coupled phenomena in the voltage-reversal single cell.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)14439-14453
Number of pages15
JournalInternational Journal of Hydrogen Energy
Volume37
Issue number19
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2012
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Current distribution
  • Fuel starvation
  • Hydrogen evolution
  • Oxygen starvation
  • Proton exchange membrane fuel cell
  • Voltage reversal

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Yang, X. G., Ye, Q., & Cheng, P. (2012). Hydrogen pumping effect induced by fuel starvation in a single cell of a PEM fuel cell stack at galvanostatic operation. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 37(19), 14439-14453. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2012.07.011