Host: The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
Name : [in Japanese]
Date : March 04, 2023
A polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) attracts attention as the next generation of high efficiency energy conversion system due to their excellent starting performance and compact size. In the future, Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) are being deployed and developed for commercial vehicles, and further output improvement is required for further popularization. Meanwhile, as output increases, the amount of heat generated also increases, so the upper temperature limit of the PEFC must be improved to improve cooling efficiency. The recently developed high-temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (HT-PEFC), which uses a high-temperature polymer electrolyte membrane (HT-PEM) that can be used non-humidified and high-temperature conditions, is being considered to solve the operating temperature conditions. While the HT-PEM can generate electricity at higher temperatures, the limiting current density values and power output are small compared to the power generation characteristics of the FCs currently installed in FCEVs. In this study, we evaluate the contribution to the polarization that is dominant in HT-PEFCs, especially the concentration polarization due to the decrease in oxygen concentration caused by high temperatures, by changing the operating conditions. In order to conduct the experiments, we fabricated a device for high-temperature power generation and selected a spring that can maintain a constant surface pressure in order to keep the experimental conditions constant. In addition, we operated the PEFC and evaluated its performance. As a result, generally normal performance was obtained, slightly inferior to the nominal performance of the HT-PEM, but comparable at high current densities.
