Vapor Delivery Systems for the Study of the Effects of Reformate Gas Impurities in HT-PEM Fuel Cells

Abstract

The reforming of methanol can be an alternative source of hydrogen for fuel cells because it has many practical advantages over hydrogen, mainly due to the technological limitations related to the storage, supply, and distribution of the latter. However, despite the ease of methanol handling, impurities in the reformate gas produced from methanol steam reforming can affect the performance and durability of fuel cells. In this paper different vapor delivery systems, intended to assist in the study of the effects of some of the impurities, are described and compared with each other. A system based on a pump and electrically heated evaporator was found to be more suitable for the typical flow rates involved in the anode feed of an H3PO4/PBI based HT-PEMFC unit cell assembly. Test stations composed of vapor delivery systems and mass flow controllers for testing the effects of methanol slip, water vapor, CO, and CO2 are also illustrated.