Neutron tomographic investigations of water distributions in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell stacks

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• 作者：Henning Mark?tter ; Ingo Manke ; Robert Kuhn ; Tobias Arlt ; Nikolay Kardjilov ; Manfred P. Hentschel ; Andreas Kupsch ; Axel Lange ; Christoph Hartnig ; Joachim Scholta ; John Banhart
• 关键词：Radiography ; Tomography ; Neutron imaging ; Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) ; Manifold stack ; Water management
• 刊名：Journal of Power Sources
• 出版年：2012
• 出版时间：1 December, 2012
• 年：2012
• 卷：219
• 期：Complete
• 页码：120-125
• 全文大小：1165 K

文摘

Neutron tomography was applied to study the 3D water distribution in full polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) stacks. The water distribution after switch-off of the fuel cell was analyzed over a period of 36?h. We found a slowly increasing water amount in the fuel cell, but only few changes within a time period of 5?h, which is about the time necessary for neutron tomography. In this way, the requirement for successful tomography was obtained. It is demonstrated how the quasi in-situ tomography technique enables us to study the water content in individual flow field channels of three-fold stacks. Flow field as well as stack design issues are addressed by this visualization method showing weak points due to a non-uniform water distribution that can be identified by means of neutron imaging.