Energy and Exergy Analysis of a PEM Fuel Cell Power System considering Various Losses Involved in the Cell

Recently, applications of fuel cell have increased sharply and are expected to take up a important part of power generation. Polymer Electrolytic Membrane (PEM) fuel cells are the most emerging fuel cells in this family. Proton Exchange Membrane or Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) fuel cells have certain advantages like low operation temperature, simplicity, easy maintenance, etc. This paper includes a study dealing with the mathematical modelling of a PEM fuel cell including an idea of the various losses involved in the cell, like the activation, concentration and ohmic losses. The performance characteristics of a typical PEM fuel cell has been shown under static load regimen. The variation of the stack voltage and the losses involved with respect to current density of the cell-stack has been explained graphically. The exergy analysis gives us an idea of the maximum work that could have been obtained and qualitative estimate of the irreversibilities involved in it. The entropy analysis provides us the quantitative values of the irreversibilities, thus providing a fuel cell design based on the maximum possible performance.