Experimental study of the start-up of a fuel cell stack for backup power application

The transient response of proton exchange membrane fuel cells during start-up is an important issue for backup power systems which require a very short start-up time in order to limit the use of batteries during a blackout. The start-up procedure of a ten cells stack was studied: in the first stage the cathode channel initially filled with nitrogen was supplied with oxygen in open circuit then in the second stage it was connected to the load. The influences of the current time-profile (step or ramp), the cell voltage at the connection and the gas flow rates on the voltage variation were investigated. It was found that the voltage value during the filling of the cathode is not sufficient to determine which fraction of the cathode was filled with oxygen. In most cases, high oxygen flow rates allow reducing the start-up time of the stack. Furthermore, for fixed current density and stoichiometric coefficients it was found that a minimum start-up time exits. The analysis of transient response to current steps showed that around 70% of the maximum electrical power was available less than 2 s after the beginning of the start-up procedure. ► Transient response of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell during start-up. ► Influence of the current time-profile and of the stoichiometric coefficients. ► Minimum start-up time.