The compression of hydrogen in an electrochemical cell based on a PE fuel cell design

The compression of gases in conventional compressors is often combined with low efficiency and the contamination of the compressed gases. In this paper, a system is described that uses an electrochemical cell for the compression of hydrogen. This electrochemical hydrogen compressor operates at lower hydrogen flux than mechanical hydrogen compressors. Further development of polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells afford a good prospect of realizing the electrochemical compression on a competitive basis. A specialized gas diffusion layer established the possibility to pressurize the cathode volume up to 54 bar. The ohmic resistance and pressure stability have been rescued by an improved membrane electrode assembly (MEA). A three cell stack on a laboratory scale has been designed. Data of single cell and stack experiments will be discussed in this paper. The advantages of the electrochemical system, apart from the efficiency, are: noiseless operation, purified hydrogen and simplicity of the system cooling.