Ion Exchanger for Fuel Cell Coolant Loop: Optimization of Product Service Life

Fuel cells will play an important role in reducing CO2 emissions from transport, especially for heavy duty use cases. Current fuel cell systems have an electrical efficiency of ~50 %. The remaining 50 % of energy lead to heat generation, which must be removed by the coolant loop at very high flow rate. In order to ensure a robust running system and to avoid electric shorts, the electrical conductivity in the fuel cell stack has to be kept low. By using the ion exchange technology, contaminants such as ions released by several components in the coolant loop and degradation products of the coolant, are separated. The core component of such an ion exchanger is the ion exchange resin. The product service life can be significantly extended by selecting a suitable ion exchange resin and a suitable design. Therefore, this paper describes the key aspects of the product lifetime such as the contamination occurring, the ageing mechanisms of the resin and the product design. In addition, a modular design concept of an ion exchanger for fuel cell systems >200 kW is presented.