Improvement in the solid-state alkaline fuel cell performance through efficient water management strategies

Experimental and analytical analysis of polarization and water transport behaviors of hydrogen alkaline membrane fuel cell

“…Water transfer rates through the A901 alkaline membrane with various back pressures for anode and cathode: (a) anode: 0 kPa, cathode: 0 kPa; (b) anode: 50 kPa, cathode: 50 kPa and (c) anode: 100 kPa, cathode: 50 kPa, with O 2 as cathode inlet gas.Moreover, it can be concluded and noted that: (1) Reasonable operating pressure gradient and thus sufficient liquid permeation from anode to cathode brings benefits for the water balance between anode and cathode, such as mitigating the anode flooding issue and cathode water shortage. This reasonably keeps consistent with the published experimental study conducted by Oshiba et al, in which water transport analysis was experimentally carried out and suppression of anode flooding issue was achieved through promoting the liquid permeation from anode to cathode using thin alkaline membrane and increasing the anode flow rate[16]. (2) Maintaining higher operating pressure at cathode will surely contribute to worse water balance between anode and cathode, as well as the slower electrochemical kinetics for both anode and cathode.…”

“…The resulting experimental and modeling polarization characteristics of a H 2 /O 2 AEM fuel cell in the cases of A0C0, A50C50 and A100C50 are demonstrated in Figure 5(a). The fuel cell output performance is considered to be comparable to the previous experimental work in the literature [16,37]. The modeling results reach a reasonable agreement with the experimental data, as indicated in Figure 5 a double-edged sword for the cathode performance.…”

“…The importance of dynamic water balance between membrane and electrode water uptake was demonstrated by Omasta et al for the performance enhancement [15]. Anode flooding issue has been also declared by Oshiba et al [16] and efficient water management strategies by changing the membrane thickness and anode flow rate has been proposed. The critical relation between the electrochemical stability and water content inside the electrode was addressed based on the experimental work and molecular dynamics modeling [17].…”

“…Recently, many experimental studies on the AEM fuel cell have been carried out to investigate the operating behavior with various cell designs and different operational conditions [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. Compared to the well-developed PEM fuel cell, the researches on AEM fuel cell are still at early stage.…”

Importance of balancing membrane and electrode water in anion exchange membrane fuel cells

“…IR-correction of the optimized condition results in an IR-free peak power of 1.8 W cm À2 , which shows the potential for peak power gains with tuned ionomer:carbon ratios, catalyst loadings, catalyst layer fabrication and porosity through optimized ink preparation methods, carefully controlled RHs, and the use of thinner AEMs. The concept of increased water mass transport away from the anode with thinner AEMs was recently explored using a pore-filled AEMs and a poly(vinylbenzyl trimethylammonium) ionomer, with some success [25], though the electrodes reported in this prior work flooded significantly even at low current densities (ca. 800 mA/cm 2 ).…”