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Evolution and distribution of the anode overpotential and its oscillations in a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell exposed to carbon monoxide

Valdés-López, VF; Castanheira, L; Hinds, G; Bacquart, T; Cho, JIS; Mason, T; Shearing, PR; (2022) Evolution and distribution of the anode overpotential and its oscillations in a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell exposed to carbon monoxide. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2022.10.007. (In press). Green open access

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Abstract

Carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) remains a challenge for their deployment, and a deeper understanding of the spatiotemporal dynamics involved is needed to develop effective mitigation strategies. In this work, localised reference electrodes were used to measure the anode overpotential at three locations across the active area of a galvanostatically operated cell (0.3 A cm−2) exposed to 100 ppm CO/H2. The anode region closest to the inlet was poisoned more rapidly than the rest of the cell, following a sigmoidal variation, and presented a higher CO coverage. The varying CO concentration, combined with local operating conditions, had a direct impact on the distribution of CO coverage. Additionally, complex self-sustained oscillations of the cell voltage and the anode overpotential were observed and correlated with the rate of CO oxidation in the overall cell. The coexistence of a dominant mean-field coupling area closer to the anode inlet, and a dominant migration coupling region closer to the outlet was identified, consistent with reported modelling predictions for a single straight channel cell. Finally, the cell recovery with pure H2 was shown to be a faster process than the CO adsorption, which follows first-order kinetics and is affected by local conditions.

Type: Article
Title: Evolution and distribution of the anode overpotential and its oscillations in a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell exposed to carbon monoxide
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2022.10.007
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2022.10.007
Language: English
Additional information: © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords: Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell, CO poisoning distribution, Self-sustained potential oscillations, Anode overpotential, Localised reference electrode, Mean-field and migration coupling
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Chemical Engineering
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10158863
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