Low temperature operation and influence parameters on the cold start ability of portable PEMFCs

The start up behaviour of PEM fuel cells below 0 degrees C is one of the most challenging tasks to be solved before commercialisation. The automotive industry started to develop solutions to reduce the start up time of fuel cell systems in the middle of the nineties. The strategies varied from catalytic combustion of hydrogen on the electrode catalyst to fuel starvation or external stack heating via cooling loops to increase the stack temperature. Beside the automotive sector the cold start ability is as well important for portable PEMFC applications for outdoor use. But here the cold start issue is even more complicated, as the fuel cell system should be operated as passive as possible. Below 0 degrees C freezing of water inside the PEMFC could form ice layers in the electrode and in the gas diffusion layer. Therefore the cell reaction is limited or even inhibited. Product water during the start up builds additional barriers and leads to a strong decay of the output power at isothermal operating conditions. In order to find out which operational and hardware parameters affect this decay, potentiostatic experiments on single cells were performed at isothermal conditions. These experiments comprise investigations of the influence of membrane thickness and different GDL types as well as the effect of gas flow rates and humidification levels of the membrane. As pre stage to physical based models, empirical based prediction models are used to gain a better understanding of the main influence parameters during cold start. The results are analysed using the statistical software Cornerstone 4.0. The experience of single cell investigations are compared to start up behaviour of portable fuel cell stacks which are operated in a climate chamber at different ambient temperatures below 0 degrees C. Additional flow sharing problems in the fuel cell stack could be seen during cold start up experiments. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.