Study of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell safety procedures in case of emergency shutdown

Fuel cell is an electrochemical device, which converts directly chemical energy into electricity and heat, by combining gaseous hydrogen with oxygen. In order to develop industrial and competitive products, reliability, availability, maintainability and safety have to be achieved. The buffer amount of reactants which is accumulated in the fuel cell represents potential energy and the electrical capacitive impedance as well. Furthermore, availability of a minimal power is often obtained by producing the power from several modules to have a sufficient level of redundancy. This work analyses the main problems leading to faulty operation and offers an electric and fluidic mixed solution to provide a continuous system operation.