A novel diagnostic technique to detect the failure mode operating states of an air-breathing fuel cell used in fuel cell vehicles

The world is at a cusp of major transition to fuel cell technology. Water management is of prime importance in air-breathing fuel cells (ABFCs). Inadequate water management leads to the dehydration or flooding which affects the performance of fuel cell. The paper addresses the issues of water management in ABFC by a novel method. Understanding of flooding and dehydration states is presented through experimental investigations. Experiments are conducted at various operating conditions to identify dehydration, normal or flooding states using easily measurable parameters like cell temperature, voltage and current. Preliminarily, by considering iR drop as a distinguishing parameter, dehydration and flooding operating states are distinguished.