A Study on Hydrogen Impurity Effect in Anode of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell on Various Concentration of CO and H2S

>> Hydrogen town in Republic of Korea was established in 2013. Hydrogen as a byproduct produced by various processes of factories is used in hydrogen town facilities. As cell performance is affected by contaminations in fuel gas, various standards about impurities of fuel have been determined by many countries. This study shows performance degradation of single cell with impurities concentrations. Traces of carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S)can cause considerable cell performance losses. For comparing the performances by poisoning of CO, acceleration test, I-V curve, constant current are performed. Both the CO and H2S poisoning rate are a function of their concentration. With the higher concentrations the higher poisoning rates are observed. And, it was confirmed that, oxidation behavior and side reaction generation are not affected. Under the lower H2S concentration condition, the poisoning rate is much higher than that of CO because of its different adsorption intensity. It can be possible that the result of this study can be used for enacting regulation as a baseline data.