Hydrogen Fuel Cell Efficiency Improvement with Increased Oxygen Concentration and Adaptive Thermal Management System

Abstract

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">Sustainable development is the ultimate focus for all the upcoming inventions and innovations in the modern world. Automotive manufacturers contribute their research in terms of producing eco-friendly vehicles since it is proven that internal combustion engine–powered vehicles directly affect the air quality with their polluting exhaust gas. The rapid emergence of zero tailpipe emission vehicles such as electric and fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) obtained the attention of major automotive giants worldwide. owing to their green mobility, battery-operated electric vehicles have already hit the road despite the challenges of recharging time, availability of recharging stations, range-to-weight ratio, and battery life and its recycling process. Drastic upscaling research and development of hydrogen FCEVs paves the way to reach the goal of sustainable transportation with its air cleaning effect, long range, zero tailpipe emission, and quick refueling time. FCEVs run with the help of hydrogen and atmospheric oxygen leaving only pure water and warm air as an exhaust. The efficiency of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) in FCEVs depends on various internal and external parameters. Research and development in terms of internal parameters with respect to the internal components of a fuel cell stack includes proper fuel and airflow channel design, efficient design of thin gas diffusion layer (GDL), and self-humidifying membrane structure design. On the other hand, the external parameters such as maintaining temperature, pressure and humidity of inlet hydrogen and air and its flow rate, and proper hydrogen recirculating system. In this article, considering the practical limitations of our fuel cell stack, we have considered only external parameters of oxygen concentration and temperature of the fuel cell stack for our experimentation. We did the experiment with oxygen cylinders and concluded that fuel cell stack efficiency increases with the increase in oxygen concentration from 21% to 50%. Also, we concluded that by maintaining the optimum temperature of the fuel cell stack with a variable flow coolant pump, maximum efficiency is retained in the temperature range of 40–55°C.</div></div>