A Full Scale Microcontroller Based Direct Methanol Fuel Cell Test Station

Abstract

The development of a direct methanol fuel cell requires a fully automatic test station for understanding its characteristic and behavior. A unique design of test station for operation of a cell or stack among 0.5W and 1.5kW has been designed and fabricated at Fuel Cell Research Technology Group in Babol University of Technology. The control unit of the test station is based on a microcontroller. The control unit is designed and fabricated for the test station to perform the test standalone. This control unit is programed to control the test station completely and independently. For data acquisitions in long time, manual control of the test, input initial set point and controllable parameter values, drawing desired curve, and microcontroller calibration, a computer software with graphical user interface is added to the system in order to drive the test station. The test station has been in operation approximately 1200h. The dynamic and stationary behaviors of the cell and/or stack dependent on the process parameters were controlled and measured by the test station.