The study on the performance of air-cooled open-cathode PEMFC with dead-ended anode

In order to be able to improve the hydrogen utilization as much as possible while ensuring the performance of the air-cooled open-cathode proton exchange membrane fuel cell (AO-PEMFC), the performance of the AO-PEMFC with dead-ended anode (DEA) was studied in this paper. First, the transient voltage model was established and the possible causes of voltage loss were analyzed. Then, the effects of anode inlet pressure, cyclic exhaust, and exhaust duration on the PEMFC performance were investigated by combining the experimental methods of transient voltage monitoring and EIS measurement. The results showed that the effect of anode inlet pressure is not positively correlated with PEMFC performance with DEA and also influenced by the load current. Cyclic exhaust can effectively reduces the voltage degradation, and the optimal exhaust cycle is different for different load current. The exhaust duration has little effect on the PEMFC performance at various load currents. However, the PEMFC performance showed a tendency to be increased and then stabilized with the increase of exhaust duration at higher current density.