Optimization of Vent Logic for Cascade Type Fuel Cell Module

캐스캐이드형 연료전지 모듈 벤트 로직 최적화

Many type of fuel cell stacks have been developed to improve the efficiency of reactants usage. The cascade type fuel cell stack using dead end operation is able to attain above 99% usage of hydrogen and oxygen. It is sectionalized to several parts and the residual reactants which are used previous parts would be supplied again to next parts which have less number of cells in dead end operation stack. The oversupply of reactants which is usually 120%~150% of the theoretical amount to generate current for preventing the flooding effect could be provided to each part except the last one. The final section which is called monitoring cells is supposed to be supplied insufficient the fuel or oxidant that would have some accumulated inert gas from former parts. It makes some voltage drop in the part and the fresh reactants must be supplied to the part for recovering it by venting the residual gas. So the usage of fuel and oxidant is depend on the time and frequency of opening valves for venting of residual gas and it is important to optimize the vent logic for achieving higher usage of hydrogen and oxygen. In this research, many experiments are performed to find optimal condition by evaluating the effect of time and frequency under several power conditions using over 100kW class fuel cell module. And the characteristics of the monitoring cells are studied to know the proper cell voltage which decide the condition of opening the vent valve for stable performance of the cascade type fuel cell module.