Water management method for fuel cell stack
Technical Field
The invention relates to the technical field of fuel cell stacks, in particular to a water management method of a fuel cell stack.
Background
Although the industrialization of fuel cell system components has been small and scalable, water management remains a very critical issue and has not been fully addressed to date. The high quality water management should achieve the balance of water content in the membrane, anode proton-electric drag (EOD) with water and cathode reverse osmosis water, and at least ensure that the performance does not fluctuate greatly due to the obstruction of liquid water in the process of transmitting reaction gas to a reaction interface, and simultaneously ensure that the performance does not decrease obviously due to water shortage and the like in the process of proton conduction. However, in actual practice, it is difficult to achieve both of the above two points, and therefore, a problem of flooding or water shortage occurs in the fuel cell stack. Flooding may occur in a Catalyst Layer (CL), a Gas Diffusion Layer (GDL), and a gas flow channel (GC) of a fuel cell stack. Slight flooding for a short time may cause a slight decrease in output power, but once severe flooding occurs in the gas diffusion layer or the gas flow channel, intermittent large fluctuations in voltage may be caused, and even a malfunction may be caused. This not only results in unstable output, but also results in degradation of the catalyst and corrosion of the diffusion layer due to local gas starvation, which affects the service life of the fuel cell stack.
To solve the water management problem, the current prior art mainly studies the fuel cell stack with less than 50 single cells. However, to meet the power density requirements for commercial applications, the number of fuel cells for commercial vehicles is currently greater than 50, and even greater than 200, and as the number of cells increases, the water management problems of the stack become more complex. In addition, the operating condition of the commercial vehicle is also increasingly complex at present, and the conditions of climbing, descending, turning, accelerating, decelerating and the like need to be met, under the conditions, for example, when the vehicle meets the conditions of climbing and descending, the fuel cell stack and the horizontal plane form a certain inclination angle, and when the vehicle meets the conditions of turning, the fuel cell stack can also be influenced by centripetal force, namely, the fuel cell stack and the horizontal plane form a certain inclination angle. In this state, the water management of the fuel cell stack is more complicated, and the flooding problem is more likely to occur. As shown in fig. 1 and 2, a fuel cell stack of a fuel cell engine system includes a single cell, and a first end plate and a second end plate provided at both ends of the fuel cell stack. The first end plate or the second end plate can be provided with a hydrogen inlet, an air inlet, a cooling water inlet, a hydrogen outlet and an air outlet. When the hydrogen side stoichiometric ratio is 1.5 and the air side stoichiometric ratio is 1.9, taking the second end plate as the head direction, the first end plate as the anode end plate, and the hydrogen inlet, the air inlet and the cooling water inlet as examples, when the vehicle goes down a slope, the anode end plate of the fuel cell stack is raised, and the lowest cell voltage (the single sheet with the lowest voltage is located at the position close to the second end plate in fig. 2 and 4) in the stack sharply drops over time, finally resulting in the failure shutdown of the stack.
For solving the problem of flooding, the solution that prior art usually adopted is for setting up special hydrogen side and air side drainage channel respectively, and this drainage channel is on a parallel with respectively and sets up in hydrogen channel and air duct below, and when the pile inclines, the product water can not gather at the tip, but gets into drainage channel and discharges the pile again, and it is great to the change of pile structure, and the operation is complicated and the cost is higher to add drainage channel, and can't solve the quick decline problem of monocell voltage when the pile inclines simultaneously. In addition, the prior art also adopts the method of estimating the water amount discharged from the fuel cell based on the state (residual water amount or inclination angle) of the fuel cell so as to judge the strength of subsequent purging, and solves the water discharge problem through purging, so that the electric pile can be normally started.
Disclosure of Invention
It is an object of the present invention to overcome the above-mentioned drawbacks of the prior art by providing a method for water management of a fuel cell stack.
The purpose of the invention can be realized by the following technical scheme:
a water management method for a fuel cell stack is characterized in that a gyroscope used for monitoring the running stability of a vehicle is installed in the vehicle provided with a fuel cell engine system, the gyroscope is connected with a control system of the fuel cell stack in the fuel cell engine system, when the gyroscope monitors that the vehicle turns, climbs or descends, the gyroscope feeds back a monitoring result to the control system of the fuel cell stack, and the control system improves the hydrogen side stoichiometric ratio and/or the air side stoichiometric ratio and further controls the end part of the fuel cell stack to drain water.
The gyroscope is fixed at any position in a vehicle carrying the fuel cell engine system, and the fuel cell stack is arranged at a position close to a head, a tail or an upper cover of the vehicle. The gyroscope is preferably a piezoelectric gyroscope, a micromechanical gyroscope, an optical fiber gyroscope or a laser gyroscope.
Further, if the gyroscope monitors that the vehicle turns, climbs or descends, the monitoring result is fed back to a control system of the fuel cell stack, the control system controls the hydrogen side stoichiometric ratio to be increased by 5-40% on the basis of the hydrogen side steady operation condition, and/or controls the air side stoichiometric ratio to be increased by 5-40% on the basis of the air side steady operation condition.
Further, the method of the invention adopts a mode of increasing the rotating speed of the hydrogen circulating pump to increase the stoichiometric ratio of the hydrogen side.
Furthermore, the method of the invention adopts a mode of increasing the rotating speed of the air compression pump to increase the air side stoichiometric ratio.
The specific working process of the method comprises the following steps:
s1, monitoring the current state of the vehicle carrying the fuel cell stack by the gyroscope, and if the vehicle carrying the fuel cell stack is monitored to be in stable operation, keeping the operation condition of the operation of the fuel cell stack unchanged, namely the stable operation condition of the hydrogen side is that the stoichiometric ratio of the hydrogen side is 1.3-6, and the stable operation condition of the air side is that the stoichiometric ratio of the air side is 1.5-6. Otherwise, the next step is performed.
S2, if the gyroscope monitors that the vehicle climbs, descends or turns, the control system controls the hydrogen side stoichiometric ratio to be increased by 5-40% on the basis of the hydrogen side stable operation condition, and/or controls the air side stoichiometric ratio to be increased by 5-40% on the basis of the air side stable operation condition;
further, if the gyroscope monitors that the vehicle climbs, descends or turns, the stoichiometric ratio of the air side is increased to 2.2, and the stoichiometric ratio of the hydrogen side is unchanged; or increasing the air side stoichiometric ratio to 2.1 and the hydrogen side stoichiometric ratio to 1.6; or the hydrogen side stoichiometry was increased to 1.7 and the air side stoichiometry was unchanged (1.9).
And S3, when the gyroscope monitors that the vehicle stops climbing, descending or turning and starts to run stably, the operation condition of the current fuel cell stack operation is maintained.
Compared with the prior art, the invention has the following advantages:
1) the gyroscope is used for sensing the running conditions of the vehicle, such as turning, climbing, descending and the like, if the climbing, descending or turning of the vehicle is monitored, the fuel cell is convenient to drain by improving the stoichiometric ratio of the hydrogen side and/or the air side, and the problem of rapid reduction of the single cell voltage when the stack turns, climbs and descends is further solved;
2) the method can be suitable for water management optimization of various fuel cell stacks including single cells with the number more than 50, and has stronger applicability;
3) the invention promotes the water discharge of the fuel cell by improving the stoichiometric ratio of the hydrogen side and/or the air side, simultaneously can avoid the degradation of the catalyst and the corrosion of the diffusion layer caused by local gas shortage, and can maintain the service life of the fuel cell stack;
4) the invention can avoid the water flooding of the electric pile without additionally arranging a drainage channel or changing the structure of the electric pile, and has the advantages of convenient operation, low control cost and quick control.
Drawings
FIG. 1 is a schematic top view of a prior art fuel cell engine system;
FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a prior art fuel cell stack;
FIG. 3 is a schematic illustration of the inlet and outlet of a prior art fuel cell stack;
fig. 4 is a diagram showing a hydrogen distribution state of the fuel cell stack when the vehicle is climbing a slope, descending a slope, or turning a corner;
FIG. 5 is a graph of the lowest monolithic voltage over time when the hydrogen side stoichiometric ratio is 1.5 and the air side stoichiometric ratio is 1.9 when the vehicle is climbing a hill, descending a slope, or turning a corner;
fig. 6 is a schematic front view of a vehicle on which the fuel cell engine system and the gyroscope are mounted;
fig. 7 is a schematic plan view of a vehicle on which a fuel cell engine system and a gyroscope are mounted;
FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating a method of water management of a fuel cell stack according to an embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 9 is a graph showing the change of the lowest monolithic voltage with time for a hydrogen side stoichiometric ratio of 1.5 when the air side stoichiometric ratio is increased to 2.2 in the case of climbing, descending or turning of a vehicle according to the embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 10 is a graph showing the time-dependent change of the lowest individual sheet voltage when the stoichiometric ratio on the hydrogen side is increased to 1.6 when the stoichiometric ratio on the air side is increased to 2.1 in the case of climbing, descending or turning of the vehicle in the embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 11 is a graph showing the change of the lowest individual sheet voltage with time when the hydrogen side stoichiometric ratio is increased to 1.7 and the air side stoichiometric ratio is increased to 1.9 in the case where the vehicle is climbing, descending or turning in the embodiment of the present invention.
Detailed Description
The invention is described in detail below with reference to the figures and specific embodiments. It is to be understood that the embodiments described are only a few embodiments of the present invention, and not all embodiments. All other embodiments, which can be obtained by a person skilled in the art without any inventive step based on the embodiments of the present invention, shall fall within the scope of protection of the present invention.
Examples
When the fuel cell stack inclines due to the influence of gravity on climbing and descending or due to the influence of centripetal force of turning, and forms a certain inclination angle with the horizontal plane, the voltage of the monocell rapidly drops, so that the water drainage capability of the fuel cell stack is reduced. When the hydrogen side stoichiometric ratio of the fuel cell stack is 1.5 and the air side stoichiometric ratio is 1.9, taking the second end plate as the head direction, the first end plate as the anode end plate, and the hydrogen inlet, the air inlet and the cooling water inlet as examples, the anode end plate of the fuel cell stack is lifted when the vehicle goes downhill, and the lowest single cell voltage (the single sheet with the lowest voltage is located near the second end plate in fig. 2 and 4) in the stack is sharply reduced along with the accumulation of time, which finally leads to the fault shutdown of the stack.
The invention relates to a water management method of a fuel cell stack, which is characterized in that a gyroscope is arranged in a vehicle carrying a fuel cell engine system, as shown in figures 6 and 7, the gyroscope is used for sensing the running conditions of the vehicle, such as turning, climbing, descending, accelerating, decelerating and the like, and can be a piezoelectric gyroscope, a micromechanical gyroscope, an optical fiber gyroscope and a laser gyroscope. The gyroscope can be fixedly placed at any position in the vehicle. The fuel cell stack can be arranged near the head, tail or upper cover of the vehicle.
The operational flow diagram of the method of the present invention is shown in fig. 8, and the gyroscope monitors the steady state of a vehicle carrying a fuel cell stack. When a vehicle carrying the fuel cell stack runs stably, the operation condition is stable, the stoichiometric ratio of the hydrogen side of the fuel cell stack is 1.3-6, and the stoichiometric ratio of the air side of the fuel cell stack is 1.5-6. When the vehicle runs on a climbing slope, a descending slope or a turning curve, the gyroscope of the fuel cell system monitors the change of the running condition of the vehicle, and the control system of the fuel cell controls the stoichiometric ratio of the hydrogen side to be increased by 5-40% on the basis of 1.3-6 and/or controls the stoichiometric ratio of the air side to be increased by 5-40% on the basis of 1.5-6. By increasing the stoichiometric ratio of hydrogen to air, more water can be discharged, thereby alleviating the problem of rapid drop in cell voltage. Preferably, the hydrogen-side stoichiometric ratio may be increased by increasing the rotation speed of the hydrogen circulation pump. The air side stoichiometric ratio can be increased by increasing the rotational speed of the air compressor pump.
When the gyroscope monitors that the vehicle stops climbing, descending or turning and starts to run stably, the operation conditions from the hydrogen side to the previous one are reduced, namely the stoichiometric ratio of the hydrogen side is 1.3-6, and the stoichiometric ratio of the air side is 1.5-6. As shown in fig. 9, when the air-side stoichiometric ratio was increased to 2.2 (the increase ratio was 16%) by the method of the present invention, the hydrogen-side stoichiometric ratio was unchanged, and the lowest cell voltage in the fuel cell stack was almost unchanged as shown in fig. 9.
When the air-side stoichiometric ratio was increased to 2.1 (the increase ratio was 11%), the hydrogen-side stoichiometric ratio was increased to 1.6 (the increase ratio was 7%), and the lowest cell voltage in the fuel cell stack was almost constant as shown in fig. 10.
When the air-side stoichiometric ratio is increased to 1.7 (the increase ratio is up to 13%) at the hydrogen-side stoichiometric ratio, and the air-side stoichiometric ratio is unchanged (1.9), the lowest cell voltage in the fuel cell stack is shown in fig. 11, and the lowest cell voltage remains almost unchanged.
The invention does not need to additionally add a drainage channel or change the structure of the galvanic pile, senses the running conditions of the vehicle by using the gyroscope, such as whether the vehicle turns, climbs, goes down a slope and the like, and facilitates the drainage of the fuel cell by improving the stoichiometric ratio of the hydrogen side and/or the air side when the vehicle is monitored to climb, go down a slope or turn, thereby relieving the problem of rapid reduction of the voltage of the single cell of the galvanic pile caused by turning, climbing and going down a slope.
While the invention has been described with reference to specific embodiments, the invention is not limited thereto, and those skilled in the art can easily conceive of various equivalent modifications or substitutions within the technical scope of the invention. Therefore, the protection scope of the present invention shall be subject to the protection scope of the claims.