Flow channel design on bipolar plates has a direct effect on Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell performance. It has been found out that the flow field design has a deterministic role on the mass transport and water management, and therefore on the achieved power in PEM Fuel cells. This study concentrates on improvements in the fuel cell performance through optimization of channel dimensio...

PEM (Proton Exchange Membrane) fuel cells show characteristics of high power density, low operating temperature and fast start-up capability, which make them potentially suitable to replace conventional power sources (e.g. internal combustion engines) as Auxiliary Power Units (APU) for on-board applications. This paper presents a methodology for a preliminary investigation on either sizing and ...

Transients have utmost importance in the lifetime and performance degradation of PEM fuel cells. Recent studies show that cyclic transients can induce hygro-thermal fatigue. In particular, the amount of water in the membrane varies significantly during transients, and determines the ionic conductivity and the structural properties of the membrane. In this work, we present three-dimensional time...

Polymer electrolyte membranes (PEM) and Pt-based catalysts are two crucial components which determine the properties and price of fuel cells. Even though, PEM faces problem of fuel crossover in liquid fuel cells such as direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) and direct borohydride fuel cell (DBFC), which lowers power output greatly. Here, we report a DBFC in which a polymer fiber membrane (PFM) was u...

Usually, modelling of fuel cell systems uses complex expressions, based on the knowledge of physicalchemical phenomena. These models require a good knowledge of the parameters involved in the processes that, in many cases, are difficult to determine. A solution to avoid this difficulty consists in using black-box models, such as those based on artificial neural networks (ANN). This paper presen...

Oxygen transport across the cathode gas diffusion layer (GDL) in polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells was examined by varying the O2/N2 ratio and by varying the area of the GDL extending laterally from the gas flow channel under the bipolar plate (under the land). As the cathode is depleted of oxygen, the current density becomes limited by oxygen transport across the GDL. Oxygen deplet...

One of the issues that need to be addressed in order to improve the durability and efficiency of a PEM fuel cell system is the management of the hydrogen feeding procedure. It has been demonstrated these aspects are improved when a hydrogen recirculation systems are used [1]. In this work, an ejector has been designed and manufactured and implemented in an experimental PEM fuel cell Test Statio...

In order to present a new and high performance structure of PEM fuel cell and study the influence of the flow direction and distribution on the rate of reactants diffusion, three novel models of vertical reactant flow injection into the anode and cathode reaction area field have been introduced. They consist of one inlet and two inlets and also a continuous channel. The governing equations on t...