Effects of the Geometry of the Air Flowfield on the Performance of an Open-Cathode PEMFC – Transient Load Operation

The single-cell open-cathode PEMFC was fabricated with 100-cm2 activation area to study the influence of the geometry of the air flowfield on the performance. Six cathode flowfield plates with different channel configurations were tested and compared under limited amount of air supplied. The transient load is applied with sinusoidal variations representative of the automotive load profile. The results were compared in the form of the hysteresis loop on the polarization curve. The effect of mass transfer loss was found at the high current density region. The flowfield with high aspect ratio gave a better performance. On the other hand, the flow area played no significant effect on the performance.