Experimental Study of Water management in H2/O2 PEMFC Stack with Specific Design

PEM fuel cells have the ability to be operated with open-end and dead-end modes. At the open-end mode the extra reactants are essential for obtaining the specified current density. The extra reactants remove accumulated water in anode and cathode channel to prevent flooding. This issue at the dead-end mode that impurities remove from channels at the specified period of times is very important. Therefore, a deep understanding of the processes of accumulation of water in the channel and water transport at the time of discharge and setting of discharge time for removing the water and impurities without leaving a considerable amount of reactive gas to outlet environment is inevitable. There are different methods for investigation of water management such as: neutron radiography, gas chromatography, capturing use of X-ray and capturing use of inferred ray. Due to high cost and many hazards these methods at most cases cannot be used. In this papera transparent PEMFC stack as a simplest, cheapest and the most suitable method for investigation of water management is recommend. Designing and manufacturing this type of PEMFC stack require special techniques. In 61 this paper, the design steps are explained with details.The performance of PEMFC stack at open-end and dead-end mode is compared. The results have shown that for steady-state operation, the maximum time possible for closing the output valves is 5 seconds and the minimum time required to open it is 5 seconds.