Continuous bubble humidification and control of relative humidity of H2 for a PEMFC system

The proton conductivity of perfluorinated ionomer membrane used in a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) depends largely on the extent of hydration state of the membrane. Sufficient membrane hydration is achieved typically through the humidification of gases prior to feeding them into the fuel cell. Further, hydrogen humidification is known to have a larger impact on the performance of a PEMFC than the oxygen humidification. Bubble humidification has been a widely used method to externally humidify hydrogen. However, to-date a continuous bubble humidification system, which is essential to the continuous operation of the PEMFC system, has not been implemented. The main contributions of this work are (i) a design for continuous humidification of hydrogen for the PEMFC system and (ii) a method to maintain the RH of hydrogen between 93 and 95% (at desired temperature) over a wide range of gas flow rates. One of the key advantages of the proposed design is the flexibility of using recirculated stack coolant water to increase the energy efficiency of the PEMFC system. The design is first tested off-line and then online with a 1 kW stack. Results obtained from both the off-line and online tests indicate that the design successfully meets the demands of an online operation. It is observed that with the use of the proposed humidification scheme, the stack efficiency in terms of power output increases by about 6–19% of the power obtained under dry hydrogen conditions.