Performance comparison between high temperature and traditional proton exchange membrane fuel cell stacks using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy

A temperature above 100 °C is always desired for proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell operation. It not only improves kinetic and mass transport processes, but also facilitates thermal and water management in fuel cell systems. Increased carbon monoxide (CO) tolerance at higher operating temperature also simplifies the pretreatment of fuel supplement. The novel phosphoric acid (PA) doped polybenzimidazole (PBI) membranes achieve PEM fuel cell operations above 100 °C. The performance of a commercial high temperature (HT) PEM fuel cell stack module is studied by measuring its impedance under various current loads when the operating temperature is set at 160 °C. The contributions of kinetic and mass transport processes to stack impedance are analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively by equivalent circuit (EC) simulation. The performance of a traditional PEM fuel cell stack module operated is also studied by impedance measurement and EC simulation. The operating temperature is self-stabilized between 40 °C and 65 °C. An enhancement of the HT-PEM fuel cell stack in polarization impedance is evaluated by comparing to the traditional PEM fuel cell stack. The impedance study on two commercial fuel cell stacks reveals the real situation of current fuel cell development.