Air Compressor For Fuel Cell

Air Compressor For Fuel Cell – Fuel Cell Catalyst Coatings – Cheersonic

The main function of the fuel cell air system is to provide the fuel cell with sufficient air at the appropriate pressure so that the fuel cell stack can maintain efficient operation. In the fuel cell air system, the core component is the fuel cell air compressor.

Due to the characteristics of the fuel cell, the matching air compressor needs to have the following characteristics:

No Fuel
The lubricating oil film will cover the proton exchange membrane and catalyst, causing “poisoning” of the fuel cell stack and isolating the hydrogen-oxygen electrochemical reaction. To solve this problem, the best way is to not use lubricating oil. Unlike traditional bearings, air bearings use air for lubrication to meet the needs of fuel cells. Therefore, air compressors for fuel cells often use air bearings.

Perfluorinated Proton Exchange Membrane - Fuel Cell Coating

Miniaturization and Lightweight
As a part of the fuel cell engine, if it is to be integrated into the fuel cell vehicle eventually, due to the limited interior space of the vehicle, the air compressor needs to be miniaturized and lightweight. At present, high speed is the development trend of the air compressor. Lightweight is an ongoing research topic for traditional fuel vehicles, pure electric vehicles or fuel cell vehicles, which directly affects the power, fuel consumption and vehicle cost of vehicles.

Low Noise
The noise of fuel cell vehicles is much lower than that of traditional fuel vehicles, but it is not completely noise-free. Among them, the air compressor is one of the larger noise sources on the fuel cell vehicle, and its noise mainly comes from the friction between the air and the pipeline and the sound of the high-speed rotation of the air compressor.

Fast dynamic response
According to the actual vehicle power demand of the fuel cell vehicle, it is necessary to adjust the intake air volume of the fuel cell stack in a timely manner, which requires that the air compressor can quickly and timely supply the air with the specified flow rate and pressure when the load changes.

High material requirements
In order to achieve the performance indicators of low cost, low noise, high reliability and high durability of the compressor, the material requirements for the air compressor are relatively high. Especially in the air bearing, when the air compressor starts and stops at high speed, the coating material of the bearing needs to have extremely high wear resistance.

At present, the output power of fuel cells and fuel cell engine systems is becoming higher and higher, so the performance requirements for air compressors are also getting higher and higher, and air compressors are developing towards the trend of high pressure ratio, large flow rate and high speed.

Our company’s ultrasonic spraying equipment can be sprayed on a variety of different metal alloys, including the preparation of platinum, nickel, iridium and ruthenium-based fuel cell catalyst coatings, as well as PEMs, GDLs, DMFCs (direct methanol fuel cells) and SOFCs (solid Oxide fuel cell) manufacturing. The battery manufactured by this technology has the characteristics of high battery load and high battery efficiency.