REJUVENATING CONTAMINATED FUEL CELL ELECTRODES WITH OZONE

摘要

Contaminants are removed from one or both electrodes of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (23, 25) in a stack (17), periodically, after the fuel cell stack is shut down, by flowing an ozone containing gas (12, 13) through the oxidant reactant gas flow fields (35, 23, 25, 38) of the fuel cells and/or by flowing a mixture of nitrogen (12) and ozone (13) through the fuel reactant gas flow fields (21, 23, 24, 25, 28) of the fuel cells. Shorting (55) the electrodes allows cleansing both electrodes at once.