Experimental Study on Characteristics of Cathode Fan Systems of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells

This paper is based on the experiments about the air flow distribution and temperature distribution of a home-made PEMFC stack with open-cathode and self-humidifying running in different operating modes.A testo435 multifunction measuring instrument was applied to measure the air velocity accurately in different operating modes.A FLUKE Ti25 thermal imaging camera was applied to measure the temperature distribution on the surface of the stack in the different operating modes.It is observed that cathode fan system has a different operating mode and air flow distribution.When the cathode fan system operates in the "suction" mode,its temperature distribution is more uniform,and its performance is better than that in the "blow" mode.The fuel cell surface temperature distribution and the air flow distribution through the cathode are consistent.This research has certain guidance and reference value to the exploration of the cathode fan system power consumption to the fuel cell performance,as well as searching for the optimization of the total system efficiency,performance,temperature and humidity.