Fuel cell diagnostics through integrating model-based technique with electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS)

The wider adoption of fuel cells has been hindered by durability and reliability issues. This research alliance (consisting of Ballard and SFU) has made significant recent advances on developing novel diagnostics techniques to detect the inception of hydrogen leak faults in fuel cells. We aim to continue to build on these advances through this grant.
This research alliance has been working towards truly online diagnostics techniques for detection life limiting faults in fuel cells. Previous successful projects had focused on diagnosing leak faults. This proposal will focus on monitoring the hydration of (level of water within) the membrane used in the fuel cell as loss of hydration is a major degradation mechanism. To this end, this project will develop an enhanced model for fuel cell hydration and simulate different fault levels to generated a fault profile detector.

Faculty Supervisor:

Krishna Vijayaraghavan

Student:

Partner:

Ballard Power Systems Inc

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Manufacturing; Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Simon Fraser University

Program: