Effect of Operating Conditions on Cold Startup of PEMFC Stack

The improvement of cold start capability is one of the most challenging tasks to be solved for commercialization of fuel cell vehicle. In this study, cold start test and ice blocking test(IBT) of fuel cell stack were carried out under various operating conditions. This fuel cell stack can be thawed from -20C within 25s and the voltage change was found to be comprised of 4 steps; the first step is the voltage decrease by overpotential, the second step is the voltage increase by the cell temperature increase, the third step is the voltage decrease by ice blocking, and the last step is the voltage increase by thawing. Bootstrap startup was failed after shutdown at temperature under 40C because of much condensed water in the fuel cell. Quantitative estimation of cold start capability have been demonstrated by ice blocking test(IBT). In the results, it was found that cold start capability was improved double every 10C from 30C to 65C and enhanced by 30% at the condition of SR 3/4 compared to SR 1.5/2.0 and enhanced by 20% with dry purge condition compared to with RH 50% purge condition.