Air-cooled PEM fuel cell stack

Cold-start at −5 °C without heating

By using endplate heating or combined endplate and air heating, the open-cathode air-cooled stack can successfully start at low temperatures, overcoming the voltage drop of single cells near the endplates caused by the endplate effect.

Chang, Huawei · Fengyang, Cai · Zhengbo, Yang · Chen, Duan · Tu, Zhengkai

International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 2023

Advantages

Successfully started at −5 °C without any external heating

Successfully started below −10 °C with endplate heating

Cannot be successfully started only through endplate heating at even lower temperatures