Impedance measurement of a fuel cell on load

The improvement of the effectiveness and the life time of fuel cells requires the optimization of components such as membranes and electrodes and enhancement the flow of gases. To this end, the impedance measurement is essential. In this paper we present an electronic measurement instrumentation developed in our laboratory, to measure and plot the impedance of the fuel cell on load. Impedance measurements were taken by using the load modulation method. This instrumentation has been developed around a VXI system stand which controls electronic cards. Software under HPVEE_reg was developed for automatic measurements and layout. The theoretical result obtained by a simulation under PSPICE_reg consolidates us in the possibility of obtaining correct and exploitable results. The experimental results are preliminary results on a 12 V vehicle battery (Impedance measurements on a PEMFC are in progress). The similitude in the graph form and in order of magnitude of the values obtained (both theoretical and practical) enables us to validate our instrumentation. One of the future uses for this instrumentation is to integrate it on a vehicle as an embedded system to monitor the degradation of fuel cell membranes.