Methanol as antifreeze agent for cold start of automotive polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells

Florian Knorr, Daniel Garcia Sanchez, Johannes Schirmer, Pawel Gazdzicki and K.A. Friedrich

Applied Energy, 2019, vol. 238, issue C, 10 pages

Abstract: One challenge for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) for electric vehicles is to ensure cold start capability and longevity under freeze-thaw (F/T) cycling. Today, PEMFCs undergo dry gas purging to remove residual water before a cold shut-down to avoid degradation due to icing. This study investigates an alternative procedure with alcohol-water solution as antifreeze. In order to demonstrate the suitability of methanol as antifreeze, F/T cycling tests using methanol have been compared with conventional dry gas purging of the cell before F/T cycling. The results show that performance degradation upon F/T cycling is mitigated when flooding the cell with the antifreeze prior to F/T cycling. Specifically, performance losses are observed at high current densities only and the peak performance of the cell does not decrease. Moreover, cold start procedures are examined to allow a start-up of the cell after being soaked with the antifreeze. In this context it is found that PEMFC operation is possible at sub-zero temperature if residual methanol is in the cell. However, residual methanol decreases power density during cold start. Hence, methanol needs to be removed from the cell by reaction or by prolonged water purging to reach nominal power.

Keywords: Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell; Automotive; Cold start; Freeze-thaw cycling; Antifreeze (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2019.01.036

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