Modelling and operation characteristics of air-cooled PEMFC with metallic bipolar plate used in unmanned aerial vehicle

The air-cooled proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack composed of the metallic bipolar plate with simple system and lightweight characteristics, is regarded as an ideal power source for unmanned aerial vehicles. A lumped parameter model is developed to analyze the operational characteristics at heights in the range of 0–3000 m. The temperature should not exceed 60 °C to ensure safe and effective operation. The peak power decreases by 20% and the stack has good adaptability to altitudes. The performance degradation can be largely attributed to the lower oxygen pressure at high altitudes through normalization analysis. It is more significant at higher currents owing to increased air starvation. The increase of the air stoichiometry is conducive to heat dissipation and reduces mass transfer loss. The voltage initially increases and then decreases as the air stoichiometry increases, and the optimal air stoichiometry corresponding to the maximum voltage is determined. Appropriately increasing the air stoichiometry can improve the consistency of the temperature and voltage distributions.