Long Term Performance of the Pressure Swing Recirculation System

Benjamin de Grisard (1) , Patrick Achard (1) , Rudolf Metkemeijer (1)

1 PERSEE - Centre Procédés, Énergies Renouvelables, Systèmes Énergétiques

Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells are electrical generators that use oxygen and hydrogen to produce electricity. To minimize the wastage of hydrogen, recirculation systems are used to prevent the flooding of the fuel cell and to limit the reactant losses. Those systems impact the efficiency of the fuel cell due to their electrical consumption. A new system of hydrogen recirculation is presented using the hydrogen consumption as the driving force of the system instead of a pump. This recirculation device was successfully tested on a 70 cells 7 kW stack. During this test, the fuel cell system works for 6h45 with only a decrease of performances of 2%. The overall gain in system efficiency was 2%.

Mots clés: hydrogen recirculation; suction pressure; fuel cell; reactant losses

Domaines: Energétique

Benjamin de Grisard, Patrick Achard, Rudolf Metkemeijer. Long Term Performance of the Pressure Swing Recirculation System. IDHEA 2014 - International Discussion on Hydrogen Energy and Applications, May 2014, Nantes, France. ⟨hal-01112582⟩