Proton exchange membrane fuel cell fault and degradation detection using a coefficient of variance method

Abstract

Proton exchange membrane fuel cell is a clean energy generator as it emits water as a by-product. The fuel cell has various applications in stationary power generation and transportation. However, there is a need to improve durability for transportation applications. Fuel cell durability is limited as its performance degrades over a period due to aging, and fault conditions. In this study, we have compared fuel cell performance by using a new cell, and an aged cell. Degradation due to aging is experimented with by using a membrane that was operated for more than 2000 hours. Fuel cell performance degrades around 90% due to aging. Moreover, experimentally faults were created to study the degradation of fuel cell performance. We created three faults in the fuel cell system: Water flooding, reactant gas starvation, and high operating temperature. Fuel cell performance observed more than 30% degradation during the fault conditions. Furthermore, the coefficient of variance technique is used to detect aging, and the fault condition.