Performance evaluation of porous gas channel ribs in a polymer electrolyte fuel cell

Commercialization of hydrogen fuel cells is scaling at an unprecedented rate. As a result, developers are focused on stack manufacturability and the associated challenges to scaling-up an assembly with thousands of individual parts that have strict dimensional tolerances. This paper first proposes a fuel cell architecture designed for continuous manufacturing that could result in all components of a stack being contained in a rolled good. This concept would move the reactant gas distribution channels into the gas diffusion substrate. The performance of the porous ribs that would result from this concept is compared with a conventional solid rib flow distributor. Performance and cell resistance are presented in a series of single factor experiments that investigate a wide PEMFC operating space. The results show that a porous rib cathode flow field is feasible, with performance benefits at near- and over-saturated operating conditions.

Automated summary

This paper proposes a fuel cell architecture designed for continuous manufacturing, aiming to improve stack design by integrating all components into a rolled good. Experimental results show that a porous rib cathode flow field has performance advantages under certain operating conditions.