Hydrogen pumping activation and galvanostatic charge measurement for PEMFC

The performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cell(PEMFC) will decline after long period on standby,and the hydrogen pumping is an effective activation. The humidified hydrogen and nitrogen are pumped into PEMFC separately, while external current is introduced to recover proton conductivity of MEA. A galvanostatic charge measurement was investigated in the hydrogen pumping activation process of a decayed one-piece PEMFC after long period on standby. The variation of the electrochemical active surface, hydrogen crossover current, electric double layer capacitance and ohmic resistance was studied. The results show that all of the parameters remain basically stable after 1 h activation, the open circuit voltage increases by 14%, the maximum power increases by121.2%, and the ohmic resistance decreases by 6.8%. In the cathode, the electrochemical active surface increases by 42.4%, while the electric double layer capacitance shows little change. The galvanostatic charge measurement can also be applied to multi-parameter measurement of PEMFC stacks.