Advanced DC–DC converter for power conditioning in hydrogen fuel cell systems

The fuel cell (FC) generators can produce electric energy directly from hydrogen and oxygen. The DC voltage generated by FC is generally low amplitude and it is not constant, depending on the operating conditions. Furthermore, FC systems have dynamic response that is slower than the transient responses typically requested by the load. For this reason, in many applications the FC generators must be interfaced with other energy/power sources by means of an electronic power converter. An advanced full-bridge (FB) DC–DC converter, which effectively achieves zero-voltage switching and zero-current switching (ZVS–ZCS), is proposed for power-conditioning (PC) in hydrogen FC applications. The operation and features of the converter are analyzed and verified by simulations results. The ZVS–ZCS operation is obtained by means of a simple auxiliary circuit. Introduction of the soft-switching operation in PC unit brings improvements not only from the converter efficiency point of view, but also in terms of increased converter power density. Quantitative analysis of hard and soft-switching operating of the proposed converter is also made, bringing in evidence the benefits of soft-switching operation mode. The proposed converter can be a suitable solution for PC in hydrogen FC systems, especially for the medium to high-power applications.