Fuel Cell Emualtor : Mimicking the behavioral characteristics of a Proton Exchange Membrane fuel cell using electrical circuits

Worldwide, the need for power generation structures continues to increase and hydrogen presents an alternative source to non-renewable fuels. The fuel cell has the potential to influence an energy revolution as it offers the prospect of supplying the world with clean and sustainable electrical power. However since fuel cells have not been fully commercialized for a number of reasons, it has become difficult to further develop this technology without access to real fuel cells. Emulators have therefore become of considerable value. Emulators are useful in areas where fuel cells are not available for experimentation and interrogation. Such systems mimic as closely as possible how a real fuel cell would behave so that by the time a real fuel cell is acquired, there would be minimum damage sustained as the fuel cell system would be calibrated properly. The emulator discussed in this book is based on electrical lumped parameters and its chief purpose was to exhibit the static response and the dynamic behavior of a real PEM fuel cell. Multiple experiments were done with a pseudo fuel cell system powering a resistive load and results were recorded and analysed.