Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

This application fosters a concerted strategy in modeling and diagnostics of polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs), which are touted as energy conversion devices for transportation and stationary power. Greenlight Innovation Corp. (GI) is a leading supplier of fuel cell testing equipment to automotive OEMs and research labs with over 700 stations in operation worldwide. To bolster this position, the diagnostics platform proposed herein is to provide quick, reliable, accurate and autonomous assessment of the state of health of the Device Under Test (DUT) and analyze, in real time, its response to changing operating conditions and load. Model-based tools will correlate changes in performance with variations in structure and properties of cell components, to decipher the mechanistic origins of performance effects. Furthermore, diagnostic tools will be devised to predict operational failures and rationalize their causes. The suite of capabilities will be essential to steer future directions in materials research and design of cells and stacks; it will enable developers to engineer failure mitigation and recovery strategies. As the basis for this platform, the SFU team will develop physical-mathematical models to draw a comprehensive performance portrait of PEFCs. Using this portrait, the group will develop testing algorithms and protocols, closely interacting with partners at GI. GI will integrate diagnostic methods and tools into Emerald, its control and automation software. The system-on-a-chip research lab at UBC will develop specific electronics hardware for tests on large fuel cell stacks.