Development on Diagnosing Method of Metallic Micro-particles Buried into Fuel Cell Membrane Electrode Assemblies using Electromagnetic Field Excited Oscillation

Experimental Study on Diagnostic Mechanism

Abstract

In fuel cells manufacturing process, there remains a problem of Fe micro-particles buried into Membrane Electrode Assemblies (MEA). In this study, the authors propose a non-contact rapid diagnosing system of Fe contamination, which is composed of an electro-magnetic impact generators and laser displacement sensors, namely EMA-LDS. EMA-LDS was experimentally applied to both samples of MEA with and without burying Fe micro-particle. As an experimental result, the oscillation under Fe-contaminated MEA was experimentally confirmed to have different phase in the natural frequency, although the normal MEA had the same phase. These results are attributed to the additional generation of Fe magnetic force and the spatial-temporal changes of Lorentz force by the existence of Fe micro particle. Therefore, EMA-LDS has an effective potential as a diagnosing system of metallic micro-particle into MEA.