Hydrogen PEMFC system for automotive

applications
..............................................................................................................................................................

Billy Wu 1,2*, Mardit Matian 1 and Gregory J. Offer 1

1
Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London,
South Kensington, London SW7 2AZ, UK; 2Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Imperial College London, South Kensington, London SW7 2AZ, UK
.............................................................................................................................................
Abstract
A balance of plant (BOP) system for a 9.5-kWe Nedstack P9.5-75 low-temperature proton exchange
membrane fuel cell (FC) stack was tested up to a power of 2 kWe. The system has been designed to act
as a range extender for a series hybrid electric vehicle driven under urban duty cycles. Vehicle
simulations have estimated that an average gross power requirement of 4 kWe is needed from the FC,
whilst simulations of the FC stack and BOP components have allowed for characterisation of transient
behaviour and performance degradation.

Keywords: hydrogen fuel cell vehicle; PEMFC system; balance of plant

*Corresponding author:
billy.wu06@imperial.ac.uk Received 9 June 2011; accepted 14 July 2011
................................................................................................................................................................................

1 INTRODUCTION
Low-temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells
(PEMFC) afford the high-energy densities and fast start-up
times required for automotive applications for low-carbon
technologies [1]. PEMFCs fuelled by hydrogen generate electri-
city with the only local by-products being water and heat.
As part of the Imperial Racing Green programme, Imperial
College London’s scheme to stimulate work in fuel cells (FCs)
and electric vehicles, a team of undergraduate students have
been developing a novel low-cost balance of plant (BOP)
system for a PEMFC stack generously provided by industrial
sponsors Nedstack and Johnson Matthey [2]. The objective of
this project was to design BOP appropriate for hybrid electric
vehicle applications under urban duty cycles.
1.1 FC stack
A single FC consists of an anode, cathode and membrane
joined together to form a membrane electrode assembly
(MEA) where hydrogen and oxygen are combined. The chem-
ical half-equations for the anode and the cathode are shown in
the following equations, respectively:
and the anode is a Nafion polymer that allows proton conduc-
tion [1]. Electrons are not able to move through the membrane
and therefore must flow around an external circuit where elec-
trical work can be extracted. The protons and electrons then
react with oxygen on the cathode side producing water and
heat. In a single cell, two bipolar plates deliver reactant air and
hydrogen to the MEA and also remove thermal energy gener-
ated from the reaction of the fuel streams [3], while also con-
ducting away the electrons. A typical no loss open circuit
voltage (OCV) generated from a single cell is 1 V [1], with
the current being a function of the active area of the MEA. To
achieve practical voltages, multiple MEAs and bipolar plates
are joined together to form an FC stack. The operating voltage
is then the summation of the individual cell voltages.
For this project, a low-pressure Nedstack P9.5-75 PEMFC
was used. The stack consisted of 75 cells allowing for a
nominal maximum power of 9.5 kWe. The operating voltage of
the stack is a function of current and decreased with increasing
power. The main operating parameters of the Nedstack P9.5-75
are shown in Table 1.
The aim of this paper is to design and build the BOP
required to operate this FC in a system suitable for a hybrid
vehicle in a series configuration.

2H2 ! 4Hþ þ 4e ð1Þ

O2 þ 4Hþ þ 4e ! 2H2 O ð2Þ 2 FC SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
In the anode half-equation, hydrogen molecules are split into For an FC stack to operate, reactants in the form of damp
protons and electrons. The membrane separating the cathode hydrogen and humid air need to be supplied to the anode and

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 Hydrogen PEMFC system for automotive applications

the cathode, respectively. Flow control and humidification are pressure and inlet relative humidity of 100% at 608C [6]. At a
key requirements. Thermal management of the stack is also maximum power of 9.5 kWe, an estimated normalised volume
required as the electrode reactions generate heat. flow rate of 42 m3/h is required. The maximum pressure drop
The laboratory FC system architecture proposed and tested at 9.5 kWe was stated as ,15 kPa [6].
in this study is shown in Figure 1. Based on the design specifications, a low-pressure Domel
For laboratory testing, a nitrogen supply was included. In blower, capable of generating 20 kPa of pressure at a flow rate
the case of system failure or shut-down, the hydrogen sole- of 42 m3/h and 1.1-kWe peak power operation, was selected. A
noids would close and the system purged with inert nitrogen Permapure FC400-2500 membrane humidifier, capable of a
to remove any residual hydrogen. peak air flow rate capacity of 72 m3/h, was used to humidify
If the hydrogen is not removed from the anode, the FC will and preheat dry atmospheric air prior to entry into the
remain at its no-load OCV. Maintaining an FC at its OCV for cathode. A recirculation loop recovered waste humidity and
prolonged periods can lead to accelerated degradation. The two heat from the cathode exhaust flow.
main mechanisms for cell degradation caused by sustained OCV A back-pressure control valve was installed at the humidifier
have been identified as being: rapid corrosion of the carbon cata- exhaust to regulate operating pressure.
lyst supports on the cathode due to increased potentials [4] and
dissolution of cathode platinum leading to increased membrane
porosity and failure of the Nafion membranes [5]. 2.2 Hydrogen subsystem
The minimum recommended hydrogen stoichiometric ratio is
1.25 for the Nedstack P9.5-75 with a grade 5 (99.999%) hydro-
2.1 Air subsystem gen purity humidified to 100% relative humidity at 608C [6].
The minimum recommended operating air stoichiometric ratio Operating pressure is near atmospheric and largely dictated by
for the Nedstack P9.5-75 is 2 at a near atmospheric operating the cathode pressure, where the pressure differential has to be
maintained ,30 kPa [6] to prevent damage to the MEAs. At
an operating power of 9.5 kWe, a normalised hydrogen volume
Table 1. Operating specifications of the Nedstack P9.5-75 [6]. flow rate of 11 m3/h is required. The maximum anode-side
pressure drop is stated as 10 kPa [6].
Parameter Value Unit
To maximise fuel efficiency, a recirculation loop recycles the
Maximum electrical power 9500 W anode outlet hydrogen back into the inlet. This is achieved
Voltage (OCV) 75 V with a Thomas 7015Z DC positive displacement diaphragm
Voltage (maximum power) 42 V
Maximum current 230 A
pump that ensures unidirectional flow. An inherent disadvan-
Weight 37 kg tage associated with the use of diaphragm pumps is the pres-
Anode stoichiometry .1.25 sure pulsation generated during operation. However, adequate
Cathode stoichiometry .2 buffering can effectively remove this.
Operating temperature 65 8C To mix, humidify and preheat the dry and recirculated
Conductivity of coolant ,17 mS
hydrogen, a custom-made bubble humidifier was designed.

Figure 1. Laboratory FC system BOP architecture.

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 B. Wu et al.

A heat exchanger installed within the unit gave waste heat re- Table 2. C-series modules used with the NI 9014 controller and
covery from the coolant stream, and allowed for the damping associated sensors and controllers.
of pressure pulses caused by the diaphragm pump. Unit Description Function
The use of a hydrogen recirculation loop dictates that there
will be a gradual cross-over of inert gases from the cathode to 9205 Analogue input (AI) Pressure measurements for four PMX219
the anode side through the Nafion membrane. The rate of dif- Omegadyne pressure transducers
Air flow rate measurements for an ABB FV4000
fusion can be defined by Fick’s law as shown in the following Swirl flowmeter
equation: Hydrogen flow rate measurements with an
Bronkhorst F-132AC flow meter
@P Cathode exhaust oxygen content with an
Jcell ¼ Ap ð3Þ
@x Alphasense oxygen transducer
9211 Thermocouple Temperature measurements with k-type
where Jcell is the molar flux (mol/s), A is the membrane area thermocouples
(m2), p is the membrane permeability (mol/cm/s/Pa) and 9263 Analogue output Blower recirculation pump coolant pump and
(AO) fan control with motor controllers
@P=@x represents the partial pressure gradient across the mem- 9485 Solid state relay (SSR) Hydrogen purge and gas supply control with a
brane for a chemical species. As inert gases diffuse to the Burkert solenoid valve
anode from the cathode, the effective partial pressure of hydro- 9403 Digital input/output Relative humidity measurements with four
gen drops resulting in a lower stack potential as defined by the (DI/O) Sensirion SHT-75 sensors
Nernst equation [1]. To restore stack potential, the anode is
periodically purged to remove all inert gases, allowing for a cRIO allowed for rapid implementation of real time (RT) and
fresh charge of hydrogen. The optimal purge strategy needs to field programmable gate array (FPGA) capabilities, with a closed
consider the trade-off between stack voltage and fuel efficiency loop proportional integral derivative (PID) control scheme for
as the purged hydrogen is wasted. the cooling system and feed-forward control using a high-level
Purging the system also causes an unsteady pressure flux in LabView programming interface. The use of LabView-based pro-
the anode. Pressure decreases near instantaneously after a gramming also allowed for Matlab codes to be embedded into
purge and gradually increases back to operating pressure there- the program as well as integration into Simulink models for
after. The rate of pressure recovery is therefore a function of future hardware-in-the-loop model validation.
pressure, temperature and anode manifold volume. Stack Table 2 presents the C-series modules used with the NI
voltage during pressure transients will therefore vary. 9014 8-module cRIO controller and the associated transducers
and controllers.
2.3 Cooling subsystem A custom-made sensor housing for the humidity, tempera-
The overall reaction in a low-temperature PEMFC is typically ture and pressure sensors in the anode loop gave accurate mea-
50% efficient [7] with efficiency decreasing with increasing surements of parameters without risk of hydrogen leakages or
current density. For the Nedstack P9.5-75, a cooling system water condensation on the sensors by means of a polytetra-
with a 15-kW thermal dissipation capacity is recommended fluoroethylene (PTFE) membrane [2].
with a temperature difference of ,108C permitted between the
inlet and outlet [6].
The recommended operating temperature is 658C with a 3 SYSTEM MODELLING
coolant conductivity of ,17 mS/m [6]. If inadequate cooling is
provided, the stack temperature will increase continually 3.1 FC modelling
causing membrane humidity to drop, leading to mechanical To characterise the system for optimisation, a Simulink-based
failure and severe performance degradation. model was created. This system level model, which was based
The cooling was achieved in this system with a Jasco centri- on the work in ref. [8,13], accounts for the electrochemical
fugal high-pressure cyclone pump, Peugeot 206 radiator and reactions that occur in the stack to calculate cell voltages based
Pacet KPF1411 pull fan. A deionising filter was installed in a on a drawn current and conditional parameters such as tem-
parallel coolant loop to maintain a low coolant conductivity perature, pressure and relative humidity.
whilst minimising the additional pressure drops. For the thermal model, a lumped mass parameter has been
assumed to solve the differential heat balance equation shown
2.4 Control system below. This accounts for the heat generated by chemical reac-
The aim of the control system was to achieve the highest power tion and that which is removed via the fuel streams, coolant
output from the stack whilst minimising the parasitic power and by the latent heat of evaporation [8].
consumption of BOP components.
mstack Cð pjstackÞ (dTstack Þ
The control of the BOP components was achieved with the ¼Q _ in  Q_ out  Q
_ gen þ Q _ rad  Q
_ latent
use of a National Instruments (NI) compactRIO (cRIO) control- dt
ler. The reconfigurable input and output functionality of the ð4Þ

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Semi-empirical models for all other subsystem components
then accounted for their transient and steady-state perform-
ance. The models were constructed in a modular format allow-
ing for testing and validation of individual components and
also future integration of a hardware-in-the-loop system.
FC degradation is characterised by a statistically generated
[9] least-square regression map, including the effects of tem-
perature and humidification on cell voltages with respect to
start-up/shut-down frequency and steady-state operation.
Based on the historical test data, Shimoi et al. [10] have shown
that the primary modes of degradation are attributed to
start-up/shut-down frequencies, power cycling and idling at
low currents. Since these are difficult to establish without
detailed information of stack use, an effective steady-state
value was determined and used for the degradation model.
The contribution to stack degradation by start-up/shut-
down frequency has been approximated as being 44% based
on typical use of an FC heavy hybrid vehicle [10]. Under this
mode, there is a catalyst surface area loss and reactant gas dif-
fusion deterioration in the cathode caused by high potentials
corroding the carbon supports.
Load cycling has been shown to contribute to 28% of
typical FC stack performance degradation. This is attributed
to the cathode catalyst dissolution caused by the potential
cycling [10].
The remaining 28% of degradation is attributed to low
current idling. Under this mode, the cathode catalyst surface
area and membrane proton conductivity degrades. This is
caused by the cathode catalyst dissolution by high potentials,
chemical decomposition by peroxide (radical) attack and
cathode catalyst poisoning by membrane fragments [10].
Figure 2 shows the modelled polarisation curve of the
Nedstack P9.5-75 PEMFC stack and also the effects of degrad-
ation. The degradation curve in Figure 2 assumes 500 start-up/
shut-down cycles with 500 h of steady-state operation.
Figure 2. Simulated polarisation curve of a Nedstack P9.5-75 PEMFC stack
and effects of degradation.
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Hydrogen PEMFC system for automotive applications
Assembly of all the model sub-components then allowed
analysis of steady-state and transient FC response. Figure 3
shows the voltage and temperature response to a periodic step
current load of 50 and 150 A with an initial temperature of
208C. A PID control scheme was implemented for the fan
cooling system with a fixed coolant flow rate for maximum
stack temperature of ,658C.
3.2 Vehicle modelling
The FC system designed is intended for integration into the
powertrain of a battery electric van operated under urban duty
cycles. In this system, the FC is designed to be operated as a
range extender under a series hybrid configuration whereby the
FC charges the batteries and the batteries power the electric
traction motors. The benefit of this configuration is that the
FC does not have to follow transient load requests. It has been
shown in refs [9, 10] that power cycling is one of the main
causes of FC degradation and therefore operating the FC under
a near-constant load is beneficial.
To assess power requirements of the FC system, a vehicle
model was developed in Simulink. Drive cycle data was entered
into the model and based on the vehicle parameters and oper-
ating efficiency of all components, the required parasitic power
consumption was calculated.
A standard drive cycle that is indicative of urban driving is
the Economic Commission for Europe-15 (ECE-15) drive
cycle. The time – velocity trace for this drive cycle is shown in
Figure 4 with the output of the vehicle model based on the
ECE-15 drive cycle shown in Figure 5 for one of the four
repeat cycles.
Based on the ECE-15 drive cycle and application of the
vehicle parameters, an average power requirement of 1.53 kWh
Figure 3. System response from a periodic step current demand cycling
between 50 and 150 A.
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 B. Wu et al.
Figure 4. Velocity – time data for the first 200 s of the ECE-15 drive cycle.
The full cycle includes three more repeat cycles of the first 200 s.
Figure 5. Power requirements and losses from electric powertrain from one
repeated cycle of the ECE-15 drive cycle.
was estimated. This value does not consider the recovery of
energy by regenerative breaking and as such estimates the
upper limit of energy requirement. If the regenerative energy
was considered, an average maximum recoverable energy of
800 Wh was estimated. This value is the maximum value as
braking will be a combination of both mechanical and
electrical.
Whilst the ECE-15 drive cycle is a standard indication of
vehicle energy requirements under urban drive cycles, analysis
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of other cycles indicates a wide variation in results. Under the
ECE-extra urban drive cycle, the average power requirement
was calculated to be 5.12 kWh with 1 kWh of recoverable
energy; however, the extra urban portions of this drive cycle
are not expected for the designed vehicle.
Work conducted in ref. [11] established a set of drive cycles
to give a more accurate indication of fleet average emissions
from internal combustion engine vehicles as the ECE-15 and
other similar drive cycles are quite a basic representation of
real world driving style and typically underestimate true power
requirements.
Based on this, it has been estimated that the FC system for
the vehicle is to be designed for an average gross power output
of 4 kWh. This is to account for the expected parasitic load of
the FC BOP and also the inherent power underestimations of
the standard ECE-15 drive cycle.
4 EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION
4.1 Air system
To enable performance mapping, the pressure loss of the FC
system was first assessed. In the system architecture proposed
in Figure 1, the main pressure losses on the cathode side came
from the FC stack and humidifier. Pressure losses from the
adjoining pipe work were negligible.
An ABB FS4000 swirl flow meter measured the volume flow
rate with temperature and pressure being measured with
k-type thermocouples and PMX219 Omegadyne pressure
transducers with a 0– 4 bar range and +1 kPa resolution,
respectively. The results of the pressure drop tests are shown
in Figure 6.
The pressure drop measured on both sides of the humidifier
and in both directions was found to be approximately the
same. Based on an operating cathode stoichiometry of 2, the
maximum air flow rate required to maintain a gross stack
power of 9.5 kWe was 42 m3/h. At this flow rate, the pressure
drop was 15 kPa. Variation in the pressure as a function of
flow rate was found to be linear.
Performance mapping of the Domel blower was performed
to find the pressure-flow rate contours for different power
ratings. From the data, the polytropic efficiency at each power
was then found. This performance map was then superim-
posed with the cathode side pressure drop data to give the
zero back-pressure operating point of the blower. This is
shown in Figure 7.
Under zero back-pressure conditions, the operating polytro-
pic efficiency of the blower relative to the system was within
the range of 45 – 50%. Application of a back pressure would in-
crease the gradient of this line allowing for higher polytropic
efficiencies and operating pressures. However, it has been
found that the increase in the performance is not offset by the
increased parasitic power consumption of the blower.

Figure 6. Nedstack P9.5-75 cathode-side pressure drop (a) and Permapure
FC400-2500 humidifier tube side pressure drop (b).
Therefore, zero back-pressure operating conditions were found
to be the optimal.
4.2 Hydrogen system
The performance of the custom-made hydrogen bubble hu-
midifier is correlated with the amount of heat transfer from
the heat exchanging element between the humidifying fluid
and coolant stream.
From the results, a convective heat transfer coefficient of
2005 W/m2K was determined based on an effective area of
7.981023 m2. The temperature difference between the two
streams will be a function of the operating power and respect-
ive flow rates of hydrogen and coolant.
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Hydrogen PEMFC system for automotive applications
Figure 7. Domel blower performance map with blower power and polytropic
efficiency contours.
Figure 8. Anode-side pressure during periodic purging with a period of 20 s
and duration of 0.2 s at an operating power of 2 kWe.
The other major design consideration with the hydrogen
system was to develop an effective purge strategy. During
laboratory testing, a purge frequency of 20 s with a duration of
0.2 s was used based on cell voltage deterioration calculations
caused by inert gas cross-over from the cathode streams. The
manifolding effect caused by the anode side volume and pres-
sure differential is shown in Figure 8.
At an operating pressure of 40 kPa (gauge pressure) under a
2-kWe FC load, it can be seen that the transient time response to
the anode manifolding effect is 5 s. During this period, the
stack voltage will be fluctuating due to varying operating pressure.
This indicates that the lower limit for purge frequency is 5 s.
International Journal of Low-Carbon Technologies 2012, 7, 28– 37 33
 B. Wu et al.

4.3 Cooling system temperature of 608C with a step load of 1 A/cm2 and different
A semi-empirical model has been implemented to characterise fan and coolant pump powers.
the break-up of the thermal boundary layer caused by the The results of the model indicate that the system sensitivities
louvre fin geometries of automotive radiators. This break-up to coolant flow rate changes are less than changes in the flow
causes an increase in turbulence in the air channels of the radi- rate of the cooling air. Based on these results, the PID-based
ator which improves convective heat transfer. control system has been designed around the principle of con-
To evaluate the effect that the louvre fins have on convective stant coolant flow rate and variable fan speed. The coolant flow
heat transfer coefficient, a Davenport correlation was applied rate has been set to a moderate value as the performance of the
to find a variable known as the j-factor [12], which was used cooling system is not a strong function of this. Flow rate has to
to relate Reynolds number (Re) to Stanton number (St) and however be sufficient to reduce out-of-phase temperature be-
Prandtl number (Pr). This is shown in the following equations: haviour induced from the lengths of coolant piping used.
Further cooling system development was based on experi-
 
Lh 0:26 mentally finding the optimal fan distance from the radiator to
j¼ 0:249Re0:42
Lp Lh
0:33
F 300 , ReDh , 4000 ð5Þ optimise the air flow rate over the surface of the radiator. The
Fl l
results of this found that for a Peugeot 206 radiator and Pacet
2
j ¼ StPr =3 ð6Þ

where Lh is the louvre fin height (m) and Fl is the fin

length (m).
The convective heat transfer coefficient can then be calcu-
lated by considering Equation (7), where all properties refer to
the working air and r is the density (kg/m3), cp is the specific
heat capacity (kJ/kg/K) and Umean is the mean flow rate (m/s).

h ¼ Strcp Umean ð7Þ

Validation of the model with a Honda Civic V radiator shown

in Figure 9 indicated a good agreement with the experimental
results.
The validated radiator model was then incorporated into a
Matlab code which solved the differential heat balance equa-
tion shown in Equation (4) based on variable fan and pump
speeds. Figure 10 shows the model output for an initial

Figure 10. Modelled stack temperature to a step load of 1 A/cm2 from a

6088C initial temperature. Constant pump flow rate of 32 l/min and variable
Figure 9. Comparison of experimental and modelled heat transfer of a fan speed (a) and constant air flow rate of 4 m/s and variable pump speed
Honda Civic V radiator. (b).

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KPF1411 pull fan, the optimal distance was between 30 and
35 mm.
4.4 Control system
For the cooling system, a PID controller manages the tempera-
ture of the FC stack, keeping it at a constant temperature
under dynamic conditions with a variable fan speed and con-
stant coolant flow rate. The reference temperature is set accord-
ing to the stack inlet with the output signal being a function of
the difference between this and the set reference temperature.
The response of the system based on two different pure pro-
portional control constants is shown in Figure 11.
Figure 11. Response of the coolant temperature with a PID controlled fan
with a 6188C set point temperature coolant flow rate of 19.4 l/min 2-kWe FC
power and equivalent proportionality constant of 0.5 (a) and 1 (b).
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Hydrogen PEMFC system for automotive applications
In both instances, the stack was run at a steady power of
2 kWe with a fixed coolant flow rate of 19.4 l/min. The fan
speed was determined by the PID controller. In Figure 11 only
pure proportional control was used. The reference temperature
for the PID controller has set as 618C with respect to the
coolant inlet temperature.
It can be seen that the PID controller produces a fan control
voltage proportional to the difference between the coolant inlet
temperature and the set-point value of 618C. Operating with an
effective proportionality constant of 0.5, it can be seen that the
average temperature is maintained at 618C with thermal oscil-
lations of approximately +1.58C and period of 40 s.
With an increase in the proportional control constant to 1,
the coolant outlet temperature exhibits the same trend with
the same period but a smaller oscillation amplitude of
+0.58C. Comparison between the inlet and outlet tempera-
tures indicates that the two temperatures are out of phase with
each other, with coolant inlet leading coolant outlet by 10 s.
This is caused by the time delay required for a package of fluid
to be circulated around the coolant cool with regard to a
Lagrangian control volume. Increasing coolant flow rate will
further damp out these thermal oscillations, however, at the
cost of increased system parasitic losses. The levels of thermal
oscillations were taken to be acceptable to allow for full-system
testing to proceed.
5 FULL-SYSTEM TEST
With the individual sub-systems tested, a full-system test was
conducted on an end-of-life Nedstack P9.5-75 PEMFC. The
stack was operated at a temperature of 618C with an air and
Figure 12. Polarisation curve for an end-of-life Nedstack P9.5-75 PEMFC
stack operated under recommended conditions mentioned in Table 1.
International Journal of Low-Carbon Technologies 2012, 7, 28– 37 35
 B. Wu et al.
hydrogen stoichiometric ratio of 2 and 1.25, respectively, with
inlet humidifies ranging from 80 to 100% for both streams.
The polarisation curve up to an operating power of 2 kWe is
shown in Figure 12.
It can be seen that the FC performance has been degraded
as the output voltage is noticeably lower than that for a new
stack. Based on the measured voltage drop, it has been esti-
mated that the FC stack has been previously been under 500
start/stop cycles with an assumed 500 h of operation. The
polarisation curve based on the assumed historical data and
degradation rate is also shown in Figure 12.
6 CONCLUSIONS
Vehicle modelling, considering urban drive cycle data, has
allowed for the estimation of a 4-kWh constant operating
power for the PEMFC. Simulink modelling of the FC stack
and BOP components have allowed for the specification of
system parameters, analysis of transient responses and system
degradation.
A BOP system for a 9.5-kW Nedstack P9.5-75 PEMFC stack
has been designed and tested up to an operational power of
2 kWe on an end-of-life stack. Analysis of the polarisation
curve has indicated that performance degradation, which when
compared with a degradation model based on a statistically
generated least-square regression map suggests that the degree
of degradation observed was caused by 500 start-up/shut-down
cycles with 500 h of steady-state operation. This has been
attributed to catalyst surface area loss and reactant gas diffu-
sion deterioration in the cathode based on ref. [10].
Pressure measurements have shown that, at the 42 m3/h
air flow rate needed to maintain a full-system power of
9.5 kWe, there is a cathode-side pressure drop of 15 kPa.
The performance mapping of a Domel low-pressure blower
has allowed for the operational points to be established by
matching the data and also for the estimation of the blower
polytropic efficiency. Polytropic efficiency under zero-back
pressure conditions range from 45 to 50%. An increase in
operational pressure has been shown to result in a negative
gross power dictating that the zero back-pressure operation
is optimal.
The design of a custom-made hydrogen humidifier allows
for the effective mixing, humidifying and pre-heating of dry
and recirculated hydrogen. Experimental validation has
shown that the convective heat transfer coefficient for the
heat exchanger is 2005 W/m2 K based on an effective area
of 7.981023 m2. Analysis of anode operational pressure
indicates that the humidifier provides sufficient damping to
the pressure pulses generated from the recirculation dia-
phragm pump. Based on the near atmospheric
hydrogen-operating conditions, it was also determined that
the transient manifolding pressure time was 5 s after a
system purge giving the extreme lower limit of purge
frequency.
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For the cooling system, a semi-empirical model based on
characterising the implications of louvre fin geometry and the
break-up of the thermal boundary layer was created and vali-
dated. Experimental testing subsequently found the optimal
distancing of the fan to radiator to be between 30 and 35 mm
for optimal performance. Matlab modelling has shown that
cooling performance has a higher sensitivity to air flow rate
than coolant flow rate, dictating a control scheme with variable
fan speed and fixed coolant flow rate.
Control and measurements of system parameters was
achieved with an NI cRIO which allows for rapid reassignment
of input and output functionality. The RT and FPGA capabil-
ities allow for logging of all relevant data as well as implemen-
tation of a closed loop proportional integral differential
controller for the cooling system and feed forward controller
for other system. Under pure proportional control, the stack
temperature was maintained at a steady 618C with thermal
oscillations of +0.58C and a period of 40 s caused by the 10s
phase lag between the inlet and outlet temperatures.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors thank the companies contributing to the parts
used in the project, as well as contributing students and super-
visors: Tanya Chong, Nicholas Lee, Ryan Williams, Christoph
Mazur, Robert Bilinski, Nicholas Higginson, Charles Hudson,
Rebecca Nelson, Michael Squire, Dr. Andrew Marquis, Dr.
Ricardo Martinez-Botas and Professor Nigel Brandon.
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