Development of fiber-optic laser absorption spectroscopy technique for gas concentration measurement in fuel cell

Abstract

To improve the performance of polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs), it is necessary to establish diagnostic techniques for understanding mass transport phenomena inside operating fuel cell. We focus on a fiber-optic gas sensing technique based on tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS), and apply it to the measurement of water concentration in narrow channel of PEFC. In this study, a transmission/reception integrated fiber-optic probe was first developed, and the absorption spectra of water vapor in a simulated flow cell were detected by using the fiber-optic TDLAS sensor. Furthermore, the validity of TDLAS measurements was verified by the numerical analysis of absorption spectra based on the HITRAN database.