This paper presented the transformation of a golf cart system powered lead acid battery into an environmental friendly hybrid vehicle. The design developed by using an advantage contributes by the uprising alternative power source candidate which is Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) and the maintenance free energy storage device, a supercapacitor (SC). The fuel cell (FC) stack was an in house manufactured with 450 W (36 V, 12.5 A) power, while the SC was from Maxwell Technologies (48 V, 165 F). This two power sources were controlled by the mechanical relay, meanwhile the reactant (hydrogen) are control by mass flow controller (MFC) both signaled by a National Instrument (NI) devices. The power management controller are programmed in the LabVIEW environment and then downloaded to the NI devices. The experimental result of the power trend was compared before and after the transformation with the same route to validate the effectiveness of the proposed power management strategy. The power management successfully controls the power sharing between power sources and satisfies the load transient. While the reactant control managed to vary the hydrogen mass flow rate feed according to the load demand in vehicular applications.

Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is one of the most promising clean energy conversion devices, whereas polybenzimidazole (PBI) polymer consider the potential electrolyte membrane for high temperature. In this study, solid polymer electrolyte membranes were studied the physiochemical occurrences such as proton conductivity, ion transfer number, oxidative stability, tensile strength, TGA, and FTIR analysis. The PBI copolymer-1 was shown the maximum proton conductivity (6.52 mS/cm) and ion transfer number (0.9723) compared with the PBI copolymer-2 and Nafion specimens. Based on AFM results, the PBI copolymer-1 had low surface roughness and remarkable grain number which favorable for ion conductivity. Despite that, it had excellent chemical stability in terms of Fenton solution and maximum weight loss measured at 4.5% after treated 200 h. The PBI copolymer-1 had high thermal and mechanical strengths that demonstrated in tensile test and TGA analysis. Moreover, acid doped solid electrolyte membranes were successfully demonstrated in single cell, which exhibited at 99.75 mW/cm 2 power density that can be recommended as a proton exchange membrane for high-temperature PEMFC application.

Sluggish oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in cathode electrode is the most common problem in Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell systems. In this study, the ORR behaviours of a half-cell in the cathodic part were investigated which had an impact on its catalyst activity. The electrode was synthesized from multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) supported platinum (Pt) catalyst, assigned as MWCNT/Pt, using an impregnation method. In this case, the hexachloroplatinic acid (H 2 PtCl 6 .6H 2 O) acts as a Pt metal catalyst precursor. The PTFE (polytetrafloro-ethylene) was also used as sub-supporting material with MWCNT to produce MWCNT/PTFE composite. The Pt is deposited onto the surface of MWCNT/PTFE composite which forms MWCNT/PTFE/Pt electrode. Using CV and RRDE techniques, the electrochemical phenomena of MWCNT/Pt and MWCNT/PTFE/Pt electrodes in the 0.1 M KOH electrolyte solutions were analysed and compared. The electron transfer (n) from the K-L plot was recorded as 3.89 and 3.77 for MWCNT/Pt and MWCNT/PTFE/Pt electrode respectively. Based on the chronoamperometric analysis, the MWCNT/PTFE/Pt was found to be more stable than MWCNT/Pt. Therefore, the MWCNT/PTFE/Pt electrode may be recommended for PEM fuel cell application considering its electrochemical activity.

A proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells (FCs) with ultracapacitor (UC) and battery (BT) hybrid system has fast transient response compare to stand alone FCs. This hybrid system is promising candidates for environmentally friendly alternative energy sources. An energy management system design and control strategy was introduced in this study. The energy management strategy FC/UC/BT hybrid system model has been developed and the control strategy was programmed in the LabVIEW™ environment and implemented using National Instrument (NI) devices. The energy management strategy is able to manage the energy flow between the main power source (FCs) and auxiliary sources (UC and BT). To control the hybrid system and achieved proper performance, a controller circuit was developed with the three energy sources aligned in parallel to deliver the requested power. The developed model demonstrates the proportion power from the FC, UC and BT under various load demand. Experimental results demonstrate that FC/UC/BT hybrid system operated automatically with the varying load condition. The experimental results are presented; showing that the proposed strategy utilized the characteristic of both energy storage devices thus satisfies the load requirement.Keywords: proton exchange membrane fuel cell, ultracapacitor, battery, hybrid energy system, energy management strategy Abstrak Sistem hibrid sel bahan api (FC) membran penukaran proton (PEM) dengan ultrakapasitor (UC) dan bateri (BT) mempunyai tindak balas yang lebih cepat berbanding FC sahaja. Sistem hibrid adalah salah satu sumber tenaga alternatif mesra alam yang amat berpotensi. Satu reka bentuk sistem pengurusan tenaga dan strategi kawalan telah diperkenalkan dalam kajian ini. Model strategi pengurusan tenaga sistem hibrid FC/UC/BT telah dibangunkan dan strategi kawalan telah diprogramkan dalam perisian LabVIEW™ dan dilaksanakan dengan menggunakan peranti instrument Nasional (NI). Strategi pengurusan tenaga ini mampu untuk menguruskan aliran tenaga di antara sumber kuasa utama (FC) dan sumber kuasa tambahan lain (UC dan BT). Untuk mengawal sistem hibrid dan mencapai prestasi yang sewajarnya, litar pengawal telah dibangunkan dengan tiga sumber tenaga sejajar selari untuk menyediakan permintaan kuasa. Model yang dibangunkan menunjukkan keseimbangan jumlah kuasa daripada FC, UC dan BT di bawah pelbagai permintaan beban. Keputusan eksperimen menunjukkan bahawa sistem hibrid FC/UC/BT beroperasi secara automatik dengan keadaan beban yang berbeza-beza. Keputusan eksperimen dibentangkan, ISSN -2506Siti Afiqah et al: ENERGY MANAGEMENT STRATEGY FOR A FUEL CELL/ULTRACAPASITOR/ BATTERY HYBRID SYSTEM FOR PORTABLE APPLICATIONS 956 menunjukkan bahawa strategi yang dicadangkan memanfaatkan ciri kedua-dua sumber kuasa tambahan dengan itu memenuhi keperluan beban.Kata kunci: Sel bahan api membran penukaran proton, ultrakapasitor, bateri, sistem tenaga hibrid, strategi pengurusan tenaga Introduction Research in the field of alternative/renewable energy sources increasingly become the ...