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A generic electrical circuit for performance analysis of the fuel cell cathode catalyst layer through electrochemical impedance spectroscopy

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journal contribution
posted on 2014-08-20, 09:55 authored by Samuel Cruz-Manzo, Rui Chen
In this study, a generic electrical circuit is presented to characterise the frequency response of the Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cell (PEFC), Cathode Catalyst Layer (CCL) at different current densities. The new electrical circuit is derived from fundamental electrochemical and diffusion theory. It consists of a transmission line in combination with distributed Warburg elements. The validation of this study is divided into a theoretical validation and an experimental validation. In the theoretical validation the impedance response of the CCL generated from three different circuits reported in the literature was compared with the simulated data from the generic electrical circuit. In the experimental validation, Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) measurements were carried out in an H2/air PEFC through a three-electrode configuration in the measurement system and were compared with the simulated data from the generic circuit. The results show that the generic circuit is able to accurately reproduce the measured data of the CCL at different current densities and is able to represent the electrochemical and diffusion mechanisms of the CCL in the frequency domain. It is possible to generate a deeper understanding of how and where the chemical energy that is released from the redox reaction is being dissipated and retained within the real physical system.

Funding

The authors thank the Mexican National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) for the sponsorship of the Ph.D research study of S. Cruz-Manzo (Grant No. 183195).

History

School

  • Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering

Department

  • Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering

Published in

JOURNAL OF ELECTROANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY

Volume

694

Pages

45 - 55 (11)

Citation

CRUZ-MANZO, S. and CHEN, R., 2013. A generic electrical circuit for performance analysis of the fuel cell cathode catalyst layer through electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, 694, pp.45-55.

Publisher

© Elsevier

Version

  • SMUR (Submitted Manuscript Under Review)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2013

ISSN

1572-6657

Language

  • en