Maximum Power Point (MPP) tracker has an important role in the performance of fuel cell (FC) systems improvement. Tow parameters which have effect on the Fuel cell output power are temperature and membrane water. So contents make the MPP change by with variations in each parameter. In this paper, a new maximum power point tracking (MPPT) method for Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell is pr...

The team assembled for this project will perform the following tasks: 1. Obtain representative samples of physical parameter sensors currently available to meet the targets specified in the fuel cells section of the Hydrogen, Fuel Cells and Infrastructure Technologies Program (HFCIT) Multi-Year R,D&D Plan (MYP). 2. Design and construct a facility for testing physical and chemical sensors under ...

A fiber optic coupled diode laser sensor has been constructed for in situ measurements of water vapor partial pressure in active proton-exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell systems. The bipolar plate of a prototypical PEM fuel cell was modified to allow for transmission of a near infrared laser beam through the flow channels on either the fuel or oxidizer side of its membrane-electrode assembly. T...

An essential requirement for an operating PEM fuel cell is providing proper water content in the membrane. To avoid water flooding an appropriate water balance is required. Here, an analytic model of a planar membrane humidifier for PEM fuel cell is proposed where the effect of dimensional parameters includes membrane thickness, membrane area and channel hydraulic diameter are investigated. A N...

In this study, a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) stack has been successfully fabricated and tested by using direct natural gas. The main objective of this research was to achieve optimal long-term performance of the SOFC stack without carbon deposition by using low-cost natural gas as a fuel. The stack configuration was improved by a new interconnect design and made of cost-effective raw materials...

Polymer electrolyte membranes (PEM) and Pt-based catalysts are two crucial components which determine the properties and price of fuel cells. Even though, PEM faces problem of fuel crossover in liquid fuel cells such as direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) and direct borohydride fuel cell (DBFC), which lowers power output greatly. Here, we report a DBFC in which a polymer fiber membrane (PFM) was u...

Usually, modelling of fuel cell systems uses complex expressions, based on the knowledge of physicalchemical phenomena. These models require a good knowledge of the parameters involved in the processes that, in many cases, are difficult to determine. A solution to avoid this difficulty consists in using black-box models, such as those based on artificial neural networks (ANN). This paper presen...