Tunisian European Cooperation Project: PEM Fuel Cells Technology

This paper presents one of the research goals of Empowering Tunisian Renewable Energy Research Activities (ETRERA). ETRERA is a cooperation project between the Research and Technologies Centre of Energy (CRTEn) from Tunisia and European partners. European partners are CNR-ITAE and Innovabic from Italy and polytechnic Nantes from France. This paper focuses on the design and realization of a fuel cell test station. The test station is used to advance CRTEn's activities in new and emerging alternative energy technologies. The fuel cell test station was developed and built in order to evaluate and qualify proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC). A circuit of gas was developed and a rack was designed and built taking in consideration several aspects such as pressure drop, condensation phenomena and security. Development of an interface in the LABVIEW environment was performed to enable mass flow controller and the solenoid valves control. It also allows PC-based data acquisition of fuel cell power, temperature, pressure and others. Preliminary tests have been conducted to confirm the proper functioning of the test bench.