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international journal of hydrogen energy 34 (2009) 2718–2723

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Online humidification diagnosis of a PEMFC using a static


DC–DC converter

M. Hinaje*, I. Sadli, J.-P. Martin, P. Thounthong, S. Raël, B. Davat


GREEN – Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine 2, Avenue de la Forêt de Haye, 54516 Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy, France

article info abstract

Article history: This paper deals with the online checking of the humidification of a Proton Exchange
Received 28 November 2008 Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC). Indeed, drying or flooding can decrease the performance of
Received in revised form the PEMFC and even lead to its destruction. An online humidification diagnosis can allow
22 January 2009 a real-time control. A good indicator of the membrane humidification state is its internal
Accepted 22 January 2009 resistance. As known, the membrane ionic conductivity increases with the membrane
Available online 23 February 2009 water content. This resistance can be calculated at high frequency by dividing the voltage
variation by the current variation. The proposed scheme makes use of measurements of
Keywords: current and voltage ripples coming from the association of a static DC–DC converter and
Proton exchange membrane fuel cell the fuel cell. The experiment thus consists in computing the internal resistance in wet and
Boost converter dry conditions.
Diagnosis Humidification ª 2009 International Association for Hydrogen Energy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights
Membrane resistance reserved.

1. Introduction This one can be measured by adding a high frequency


component to the main fuel cell current. Indeed, it is well known
The proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) offers some that the ‘‘small signal’’ electrical behavior of a PEMFC can be
advantages to other fuel cells as relative simplicity design and represented, as in Fig. 1, by the Randles equivalent scheme [5].
low operating temperature. An appropriate humidity condi- This representation is a common and practical way of
tion not only can improve the performances and efficiency of modeling an electrochemical cell. It consists of three resistors,
the fuel cell [1], but can also prevent irreversible degradation rm standing for ohmic resistance and ra, rc standing for anode
of internal composition such as the catalyst or the membrane. and cathode charge transfert resistances, respectively, due to
Indeed, little or no water leads to membrane drying, which the hydrogen oxidation and oxygen reduction. Cdl,a and Cdl,c
decreases the membrane ionic conductivity [2], and thus are the double-layer capacities at the electrode/membrane
increases voltage drop across the membrane. Conversely, too interfaces. Finally, Zw,a and Zw,c are the diffusion impedances
much water causes flooding, the pores in the electrodes are associated to the gas diffusion in the anode and the cathode,
filled with water and the transport of reactant gases to the respectively. At high frequency, this scheme can be reduced to
catalyst site is thus obstructed. To have an adequate hydra- the ohmic resistance rm. Since the electronic and contact
tion of the PEM at each time, a real-time control of humidifi- resistances contribution is negligible compared to the
cation state is needed. A good indicator of the humidification membrane resistance, the ohmic losses are often assumed to
state is the membrane resistance [3,4]. result in the membrane resistance. Therefore, this resistance

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ33 383 59 56 64; fax: þ33 383 59 56 53.
E-mail address: melika.hinaje@ensem.inpl-nancy.fr (M. Hinaje).
0360-3199/$ – see front matter ª 2009 International Association for Hydrogen Energy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijhydene.2009.01.076
international journal of hydrogen energy 34 (2009) 2718–2723 2719

anode membrane cathode

Cdl,a Cdl,c

rm
Zw,a Zw,c
ra rc

Fig. 1 – Equivalent circuit of an electrochemical cell.

can be deduced at high frequency, dividing the voltage vari- presents a sketch of the experimental setup. As can be seen in
ation by the current variation: this figure, air is supplied through a humidification unit to
  cathode, and pure dry hydrogen from cylinders to anode. The
Dv
rm ¼ (1) humidifier can be shut down by opening the solenoid valve v1
Di HF
so that dry air flows towards fuel cell cathode. This will be
Experimentally, frequency of the alternative current compo- used to vary the humidification state of the fuel cell. A cooling
nent, which enables rm measurement, is chosen so that the system keeps the stack temperature constant. Data acquisi-
phase shift between voltage and current is null [6]. tion cards are used for all necessary control functions such as
In this paper, we present a measurement method for rm that reference setting (gas flows, pressures, and stack
does not need any additional device for generating the high temperature).
frequency current component. Indeed, as fuel cells are low Fig. 3 shows the impedance spectrum of our 500 W PEMFC
voltage generators, it is most often necessary to use a power at 30 A, under a stack temperature of 55  C and a humidifier
electronic converter, in order to increase fuel cell output temperature of 50  C at atmospheric pressure. This experi-
voltage. The current ripple, naturally produced by this mentation was carried out by means of usual impedance
converter, enables rm measurement if the switching frequency spectroscopy method. The intersection with the real axis is
is high enough. We obtain that way a real-time control of the obtained at 2 kHz, it gives the membrane resistance value, in
fuel cell humidification state [7]. Hence, in this lecture, we this case rm ¼ 40 mU.
propose an additional use of the converter associated with the
fuel cell. In the following parts, the test bench is described, then
experimental results are detailed and discussed. 2.2. Boost converter operating principle

As it has been written before, fuel cells are low voltage


generators, so that it is necessary to connect them to
2. Fuel cell and converter unit a converter [8]. The DC–DC power electronic converter used in
the test bench [9,10] is a standard boost chopper. As depicted
2.1. Fuel cell experimental setup in Fig. 4, it is composed of an input inductor L, a power
semiconductor switch denoted S, a diode D and an output
The considered stack is a 500 W proton exchange membrane capacitor C. State variables of this power electronic system are
fuel cell constituted of 23 cells, active area 100 cm2. Fig. 2 the input current iFC and the DC link voltage vOUT.

Fig. 2 – 500 W PEMFC (ZSW, Germany) connected to a DC–DC converter.


2720 international journal of hydrogen energy 34 (2009) 2718–2723

Im(Z)

Rm 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 Re(Z)

2 kHz
-0.02

-0.04
Fig. 5 – High frequency fuel cell model used for simulating
the fuel cell/boost converter association.
Fig. 3 – PEMFC impedance spectrum (50 mHz–2 kHz). Mean
current: 30 A.

VIN
VOUT ¼ (4)
1a
In normal operating mode, the boost chopper has two a being the duty cycle of the switch (ratio of the switch
working sequences. The first is defined by the switch on-state. conduction duration to the switching period T ). As a ˛ [0, 1], it
It is driven by the switch turn-on, and is characterized by the can be deduced that VOUT  VIN: the boost converter enables
following state equations system: voltage increase, which is an advantage when using fuel cells
8 as power sources. The second great advantage of the boost
> di v V þ rL ,iFC
< FC ¼ IN  T converter is that its input current is a state variable of the
dt L L (2) system, and thus can be regulated with an usual feedback
: dvOUT ¼ iOUT
>
dt C loop. It is of great interest for fuel cells, as far as fuel cell
current has to be carefully controlled.
where VT is the on-state voltage drop of the switch, and rL the
series resistance of the inductor. If the electric time constant
2.3. Fuel cell/boost chopper association
L/rL of the inductor is far greater than the switching period T of
the converter, this first sequence leads to a linear increase of
In our low voltage application (VOUT ¼ 42 V), unipolar semi-
the inductor current. The second sequence is defined by the
conductor devices are used, in order to reduce conduction and
diode on-state. It is driven by the switch turn-off, and is
turn-off losses. Therefore, a power MOSFET STE180NE10
characterized by the following state equations system:
(100 V, 180 A, 4.5 mU) and a Schottky diode STPS80H100TV
8 (100 V, 2  40 A, 2.2 mU) were chosen for switch S and diode D,
> di v  vOUT VD þ rL ,iFC
< FC ¼ IN 
dt L L (3) respectively. Since the switching frequency of the converter is
: dvOUT ¼ iFC  iOUT
> 25 kHz, the input inductor L was calculated in order to obtain
dt C about 10% current ripple at the rated operating point of our
where VD is the on-state voltage drop of the diode. This fuel cell system (500 W, 12.5 V, 40 A). It was made using soft
sequence results in a linear decrease of the inductor current ferrite cores ETD59-3C90. The inductance value is 100 mH, and
(provided that L/rL >> T ). the series resistance rL is 30 mU. The output capacitance is
In steady state, the input current is periodic, so that the 30 mF, which is computed from the capacitor rms current
mean value of diFC/dt is necessarily equal to zero. That way, (about 22 A for our application) at rated operating point. To
one can easily calculate the mean output voltage VOUT, by this end, we used three aluminium electrolytic components of
integrating diFC/dt equations of system (2) and (3) over a period 10 mF (100 V, 7.3 A) in parallel.
of operation. If the ideal conversion (no losses, i.e. VT ¼ 0, The fuel cell current iFC is regulated by a PID controller. The
VD ¼ 0 and rL ¼ 0) is considered, this results in the following whole system (power electronics structure, parameters of
function of the mean input voltage VIN: passive elements and semiconductor devices, regulation

iFC L iOUT
D

vIN S C vOUT

fuel cell boost chopper load

Fig. 4 – Boost chopper.


international journal of hydrogen energy 34 (2009) 2718–2723 2721

Fig. 8 – Relative humidity of inlet air.

resistance, carried out without modifying the switching


frequency for which the converter has been designed.
To this end, a higher frequency than the theoretical value
Fig. 6 – Simulated fuel cell current.
required for accurate measurement of membrane resistance
can be used, provided that the inductive effect is small enough
compared to the resistance. To highlight this, the computed
loops) had been implemented in a circuit simulation software. fuel cell voltage linked to the current waveform drawn in
The fuel cell was represented by a high frequency model Fig. 6, is plotted in Fig. 7, and is to be compared with experi-
(diffusion phenomena are considered through an instanta- mental voltage waveforms presented in Fig. 9. The magnitude
neous concentration overpotential, included in the activation of the voltage ripple is equal to 156 mV (instead of 140 mV
overpotential), composed of a voltage source standing for experimentally obtained, as can be seen in Fig. 10). With such
open circuit voltage (OCV), a current-dependent resistance a value, the membrane resistance is estimated to 44 mU,
associated with activation overpotential, the double-layer which is 10% higher than the theoretical value. The difference
capacitor, the membrane resistance, and a series inductor (cf. is of course due to the inductive part in fuel cell voltage ripple.
Fig. 5). Fig. 6 presents the simulated waveform of the fuel cell Nevertheless, as shown by experimental results presented in
current obtained in steady state, the fuel cell current reference the next section, it is low enough compared to the membrane
being set to 30 A, and the load being adjusted so that DC link resistance, and it will not hide the increase of membrane
voltage is 42 V. These results were achieved for the following resistance. Indeed, it has to be underlined that the diagnosis is
simulation parameters: OCV ¼ 23 V, activation losses ¼ 8.3 V, based on the evolution of the membrane resistance due to
CDL ¼ 20 mF, rm ¼ 40 mU, lFC ¼ 35 nH. The current ripple is alteration or changes in humidification conditions.
3.5 A peak-to-peak, which corresponds to the experimental
value (cf. Fig. 10).
As depicted by L. Schindele et al. [11], one can take benefit 3. Experimental results
of the high frequency triangular waveform of input current to
measure the fuel cell membrane resistance. However, an All experimentations hereafter are carried out under a stack
accurate measurement requires to set the switching temperature of 55  C and a humidifier temperature of 50  C at
frequency to the value for which the fuel cell exhibits a fully
ohmic behavior (2 kHz for our stack). The aim of this study is
to present an additional use of the fuel cell converter, as
a diagnosis device of the membrane humidification state. All
we need is a qualitative measurement of the membrane

Fig. 9 – Current and voltage waveforms at t [ 10 s and


Fig. 7 – Simulated fuel cell voltage. t [ 60 s.
2722 international journal of hydrogen energy 34 (2009) 2718–2723

Fig. 12 – Mean fuel cell voltage under wet and dry


conditions.

a voltage drop at constant current, the found way to distin-


guish between flooding and drying is to have an online
Fig. 10 – Magnitude ripples of the voltage and the current. checking of the internal resistance. Those results are, of
course, well known, but what is new in this work, is the way to
obtain an online evolution of the membrane resistance.
atmospheric pressure. The fuel cell current is regulated by Therefore, the advantage of our method is that nothing
a PID controller. Its mean value is 30 A. The converter is loaded is added to the test bench, we only use the natural ripples due
by a rheostat, set so that DC link voltage is 42 V. The experi- to the boost chopper to have a real-time diagnosis of the
ment consists in shutting down the humidifier (see Fig. 8) by PEMFC.
opening the solenoid valve v1, so that dry air flows through
fuel cell cathode. This state is maintained during 60 s. At each
second, fuel cell mean voltage, and current and voltage ripple
amplitudes are registered.
4. Conclusions
The current and voltage waveforms, at t ¼ 10 s and
Water management is one of the most critical problems in
t ¼ 60 s (humidifier shut down being taken as time origin),
PEM fuel cell operation. In this paper, a method for checking
are shown in Fig. 9. As can be seen in this figure, the cut-
the humidification state of the membrane has been devel-
off duration of the humidifier influences the voltage and
oped by exploiting the connection of a boost converter to
current ripples. Indeed, the magnitude of the voltage
the fuel cell. The method relies on the estimation of the
ripple increases with the drying of the membrane (because
internal resistance calculated from the voltage and current
of an increase of membrane resistance), whereas, the
ripples. As this resistance increases in response to drying,
magnitude of the current ripple decreases, as a conse-
its time evolution allows us to have a real-time control of
quence of the decrease of the fuel cell mean voltage (cf.
fuel cell humidification state which can avoid destroying it.
Fig. 12).
In short, an additional use of the boost converter as a diag-
The time evolution of voltage and current amplitudes is
nosis device of the PEMFC humidification has been
drawn in Fig. 10. The membrane resistance, plotted in Fig. 11,
highlighted.
results from the ratio of the previous curves. We can notice
that the resistance strongly increases when the humidifier is
shut down; in wet condition this one is equal to 40 mU, and
references
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We can also remark that the voltage mean value decreases
from 13.5 V to 10 V (see Fig. 12). Note that the experiment does
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