Hydrogen Fuel Cell's

The objective: I designed and built a renewable hydrogen energy system. It consisted of a photovoltaic panel, an electrolyzer, a hydrogen storage system, and a proton exchange membrane fuel cell. I tested it to find its optimum operating conditions and energy conversion efficiency. The entire system was designed to be simple enough and cheap enough to build and test in a high school classroom for educational purposes.

Methods/Materials

I built almost all of the components in my garage from materials you can buy from a hardware store. I made changes in the design of the different parts of the system to try to make it work more efficiently. I manipulated air flow, cell compression, source of oxygen and type of proton exchange membrane to see how these variables affected the voltage and current output of the fuel cell. I also tested the electrolyzer to determine hydrogen and oxygen production rates.

Results

The efficiency of the solar panel averaged only 3% because it was operating at a low voltage and a high current which was very inefficient operating point for that particular panel. The energy efficiency of the electrolyzer was 41% which is about right when compared to industrial standards and considering the simplicity of the design. The maximum fuel cell efficiency was 10%. The source of oxygen and the compression had the most affect on the cell#s performance.