Development of 1 kW class polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell power generation system

Regarding the reliability of the polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell, the advancement of fuel, thermal and water management techniques of the system have been critically investigated. In this study, a I kW class PEM fuel cell stack is built with an Aciplex-S(TM) membrane, which is integrated to be automatically controlled in a hydrogen-fueled power generation system of a 80 cm x 70 cm x 126 cm single unit with a dc/ac inverter which produces 220 VAC power. Intensive and systematic care should be taken especially with the longer cell stack which is being operated under repeated current load change. The automatically controlled fuel-feed and thermal management system achieved in this study can markedly enhance the fuel efficiency and the reliability of the cell stack. The devices in the sub-systems are all electrically controlled versions to be manipulated on a touch screen via a PLC unit. The thermal and fuel-feed control logic are pre-built-in the CPU of the PLC unit based on an early study of cell stack evaluation. In addition, the power inverting and dummy load unit is coupled to the power generation system, and an additional data acquisition system has been constructed. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.