Assessment of the electrochemical characteristics of a Polymer Electrolyte Membrane in a reference single fuel cell testing hardware

Abstract

The design of a new testing hardware for Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) single cell is presented in this paper. It has been developed with the purpose to minimise the influence from the testing hardware itself on results of performance and durability tests. This has been achieved by exposing the tested Membrane Electrode Assembly (MEA) to as far as possible uniform distribution of temperature, pressure and reactant gases composition across the active area. The new hardware aims thus at providing a reference testing platform enabling the generation of accurate experimental results and better comparison among different laboratories. The performance of this new hardware has been compared with single-serpentine channel hardware, commonly used for PEM single cell testing. Evaluation of polarisation curve and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy experimental results show that it provides better quality results which are much less affected by accumulated liquid water, thus providing better information on MEA performance.