Manokaran, A. and Pushpavanam, S. and Sridhar, P. and Pitchumani, S. (2011) Experimental analysis of spatio-temporal behavior of anodic dead-end mode operated polymer electrolyte fuel cell. Journal of Power Sources, 196 (023). pp. 9931-9938. ISSN 0378-7753

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Abstract

During the anodic dead-end mode operation of fuel cells, the inert gases (nitrogen and water) present in the cathode side gas channel permeate to the anode side and accumulate in the anode gas channel. The inert gas accumulation in the anode decreases the fuel cell performance by impeding the access of hydrogen to the catalyst. The performance of fuel cell under potentiostatic dead-end mode operation is shown to have three distinct regions viz. time lag region, transient current region and a steady state current region. A current distribution measurement setup is used to capture the evolution of the current distribution as a function of time and space. Co- and counter-flow operations of dead-end mode confirm the propagation of inert gas from the dead-end of anode channel to the inlet of anode. Experiments with different oxidants, oxygen and air, under dead-end mode confirm that nitrogen which permeates from cathode to anode causes the performance drop of the fuel cell. For different starting current densities of 0.15 A cm−2, 0.3 A cm−2 and 0.6 A cm−2 the inert gas occupies 35%, 45% and 57%, respectively of anode channel volume at the end of 60 min of dead-end mode operation

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Anodic dead-end mode; Nitrogen accumulation; Spatio-temporal current distribution
Subjects:	Fuel Cells Electrochemical Power Sources
Divisions:	UNSPECIFIED
Depositing User:	ttbdu cecri
Date Deposited:	19 Nov 2012 08:08
Last Modified:	19 Nov 2012 08:08
URI:	http://cecri.csircentral.net/id/eprint/2912

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