Improving the anode subsystem water management of a PEM fuel cell system: A simulation study towards enhanced power density and lifetime

The increasing awareness and urgency of climate change have led to an increase in investments and research into power sources not reliant on fossil fuels. Proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells are a promising technology for automotive, maritime, and auxiliary power applications converting chemical energy into electricity. In order for this...

Towards low-cost PEM fuel cells: Interfacial effects and material dynamics of a non-PGM electrocatalyst

In this thesis several aspects of PEM fuel cells are discussed. From an atomic scale, e.g. crystal and electronic structure of a non-noble metal material, e.g. (H)zLiMn2O4 (protonated spinel lithium manganese oxide) for electrocatalysis and its dynamics, to meso-macro scale effects such as those concerning transport resistances at the membrane...

Introduction of PEM Fuel Cells on Inland Ships

The CCNR will ensure that in 2050 inland ships do not emit any emissions. A PEM fuel cell system running on pure hydrogen could be a solution. However, the new system imposes some difficulties on the design of the inland ship. A calculation model is created to evaluate inland ships with this system and research these difficulties. The...

Future Hydrogen Town: Designing a PV-Hydrogen-Battery-FC system for atypical neighbourhood in the Netherlands

One of the goals outlined during the Paris Agreement in 2015 aimed at 'holding the increase in global average temperature to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C'. In conjunction with this, the Klimaatakkord of the Netherlands aims to 'reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the...

Future City Hydrogen: Reality or Utopia?: A techno-economical feasibility study of an optimal stand-alone Solar-Electrolyzer-Battery-FuelCell system for residential utilization

The population worldwide is growing rapidly which leads to an increase of the energy demand. Simultaneously, the established energy resources are being depleted and contribute negatively to the climate. The necessity for a sustainable and inexhaustible energy source, to deal with the increasing energy demand in an ecological friendly approach,...

Ancillary services from Hydrogen Based Technologies to Support Power System Frequency Stability

The share of renewable energy sources in the electricity generation is expected to maintain a steady growth in the future driven by economic and environmental reasons. However, these renewable sources such as wind and solar have fluctuating power output. This fluctuation causes strain on the power system and can cause imbalances between...

Fuel cell electric vehicle-to-grid: Experimental feasibility and operational performance as balancing power plant

The world's future energy supply will include intermittent renewable sources, such as solar and wind power. To guarantee reliability of supply, fast-reacting, dispatchable and renewable back-up power plants are required. One promising alternative is parked and grid-connected hydrogen-powered fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) in "Vehicle-to...

The effect of pulsating pressure on the performance of a PEM fuel cell with a wavy cathode surface

In the context of attempts to improve the performance of Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cells with a heterogeneous porous gas diffusion layer (GDL) consisting of carbon paper, we investigated whether - and to which degree - pulsating the pressure in a single waveform cathode channel affects the flow field in the channel and the...

Conductive Graphitic Networks: From Atoms to Fuel Cells

Graphitic materials have attracted a great interest in the field of sustainable energy production and storage because of their excellent electrical, mechanical and chemical properties. This thesis modestly contributes to this global research by investigating new interconnected carbon nanostructures, here called Carbon Nano-Networks (CNNs). The...

Model predictive control of fuel cell micro cogeneration systems

With the increasing application of distributed energy resources and information technologies in the electricity infrastructure, innovative possibilities for incorporating the demand side more actively in power system operation are enabled. At the residential level energy costs could be reduced with intelligent price-based control concepts ...