Search results for "Fuel Cells"
showing 10 items of 83 documents
Experimental characterization of PEM fuel cells by micro-models for the prediction of on-site performance
2009
This paper presents the results of an experimental analysis performed on a miniaturized, 6 We Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) system, integrated with on-site hydrogen production by electrolysis; in particular, the effects of environmental parameters such as the external temperature and the humidity on the performance of fuel cells are investigated. PEMFC systems are zero-emissions power technologies when they are fed with pure hydrogen (at concentration higher than 97%); also, being the only results of system operation the produced electricity and some pure water, when produced by renewable sources hydrogen can be considered an attractive alternative to fossil fuels and may concu…
Controlled Fault-Tolerant Power Converters for Power Quality Enhancement
2013
Power quality depends generally on the interaction of electrical power with electrical equipments. If electrical equipments operate correctly and reliably without being damaged or stressed, a suitable level of power quality is assured. On the other hand, if the electrical equipment malfunctions, is unreliable, or is damaged during normal usage, power quality is poor and probably the economical loss could be important like the technical one. In the scenario of the Distributed Generation, power quality issues will be moreover important because an higher dissemination of power conditioning equipment will be requested and this obviously increases the sources of vulnerability of the electrical s…
PEM Fuel Cell System Model Predictive Control and real-time operation on a power emulator
2010
Fuel Cell Systems (FCS) seem to be among the most reliable devices to produce clean energy, although they still suffer for many problems, mostly related to the fragility of the Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM). Particularly, this paper focuses on the oxygen starvation, that leads both a decrease of the FCS performance and a shortening in the FCS lifetime. The purpose is to use the Model Predictive Control (MPC) and its capacity of accounting for linear constraints for managing the air system without risking to damage the fuel cell. Two control inputs and no static feed-forward actions have been used. Results show that the MPC is able to avoid the oxygen starvation, even with a sudden incr…
Modelling of single cell solid oxide fuel cells using COMSOL multiphysics
2017
Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) have the potential to become one of the efficient and cost effective systems for direct conversion of a wide variety of fuels to electricity. In this study, we developed a three-dimensional multiphysics model for a single cell SOFC using COMSOL multiphysics (version 5.2) software and performed simulations to examine the effect of gas flow patterns (radial flow and counter flow) in different operating temperatures (700° C, 800° C and 1000° C) for a planar anode supported SOFC. With the help of the simulation results, we have analyzed the electrical characteristics of the single cell SOFCs. From the simulation results, it is observable that the radial gas flow p…
Experimental test on a fuel cell powered brushless synchronous motor for automotive applications
2014
In this paper, a fuel cell powered motor emulator is proposed. The MATLAB/Simulink model including the fuel cell stack, the motor and drive models is described. The Urban Driving Cycle test is performed in MATLAB environment. Effective operating conditions of the whole fuel cell powered motor are accurately emulated according to actual regulations in force. The emulated current profile is used for experimental tests on a 5kW Nuvera PowerFlow stack. Thanks to the proposed approach, the motor and inverter drives are accurately emulated and the provided test-bench is used to evaluate performances of the stack under test for automotive applications. Simulation and experimental results are compa…
Life Cycle Assessment of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells and Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells
2017
Abstract Fuel cells (FCs) are among the key technologies that Europe will have to rely on in order to comply with the most recent environmental targets inspired by decarbonization and circular economy. The assessment of the real advantages of using FCs for producing energy must include a reliable analysis of the energy and environmental impacts during the life cycle of these systems, including the raw materials supply, production, use, and disposal. In this context, the life cycle assessment (LCA) is a well-established methodology for assessing the eco-profile of products and services and for identifying the components and the life cycle steps having the largest contribution to energy and e…
Technical, Environmental and Economical Aspects of Hybrid Systems Including Renewables and Fuel Cells
2006
In this paper, some configurations including renewables and fuel cells are studied. Technical, environmental and economical aspects are treated in the frame of the EU regulations concerning the ‘emission trading’ issue and the way in which Italy has implemented the relevant EU directive. The study has been carried out considering some architectures including renewables such as photovoltaic and wind with a back up system to increase continuity of supply based on the application of fuel cells and of a hydrogen storage system. Performing several runs with different values of the cost of energy (COE) bought from the network and produced with traditional fuel, it has been observed that, for some…
A circuit model of a 5kW fuel cell
2013
In the last few years, industrial research has been focused on renewable energy sources. Owing to combined heat-power generation option, fuel cells have attracted much interest for a wide variety of research areas. Household appliances are still the most promising applications. Fuel cell modeling is still a critical topic to focus on, affecting each stage of power system design. This paper describes an empirical method to model a proton exchange membrane fuel cell. The modeling approach is applied to a 5kW Nuvera PowerFlow fuel cell. A circuit model is proposed for further applications. PSPICE implementation is described and the parameters tuning procedure is discussed. Simulation and exper…
Hydrogen Supplied Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles
2020
The aim of this work is the experimental characterization of a Wireless Charging System based on IPT (Inductive Power Transfer) supplied by a PEMFC (Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell) in order to verify the possibility of its installation in not electrified areas. A hydrogen-based supply system is designed and assembled with the purpose of having an EV (electrical vehicle) charging station not connected to the main power grid. An efficiency analysis of the wireless transmission system is carried out taking into account external parameters such as distance and misalignment between the transmitter coil and the receiver coil, verifying the integration potentialities of both IPT and fuel cell …
Energetic macroscopic representation and inversion based control of fuel cell in a series hybrid race vehicle system
2020
This paper studies the replacement of engine and generator as range extender in a hybrid racing car with a fuel cell system. A model of the original system of the car using range extender consisting of an internal combustion engine and electric generator has been developed respecting the action-reaction principle used by energetic macroscopic representation (EMR) and its inversion based control (IBC) to organise its subsystems interconnection according to the physical causality. Results from drive tests of the real car on racing circuit are used to validate the model. The objective of this paper is to study the parameterisation and the integration of fuel cell stack components based on this…