Development of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell System for Portable Refrigerator

Abstract

A proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell system for powering a portable refrigerator is developed. The PEM fuel cell system consists of an air-cooled stack with combined oxidant and coolant flow, a hydrogen supply subsystem with two metal hydride canisters, a power management subsystem with a DC-DC converter and a rechargeable battery, and a control electronics subsystem. To analyze the performance of the PEM fuel cell system, the stack power output, the balance-of-plant (BOP) power consumption and the battery charging power are measured at various external loading conditions. The BOP system shows low efficiency of 20.7% under no-load condition, while it increases to 72.3% at 200.5 W system power output.