Influences of Contact Pressure on the Performances of Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells

Abstract EN

Fuel cells face major challenges in sustaining the laboratory-scale performance during the scale up.

The contact resistance mainly arises from the dimensional mismatch between gasket and gas diffusion layer during scale up, which may cause diminution in performance.

In the present work, experiment as well as modelling is carried out for different combinations of clamping force and gasket thickness.

The polarisation behaviours of PEFCs configured under different clamping torques and gasket thicknesses are analysed.

The combination of 0.3 mm gasket and 0.3 mm GDL under 3 Nm and 5 Nm clamping forces offers 480 mΩ cm2 and 148 mΩ cm2 contact resistances, respectively.

The configurations under 3 Nm and 5 Nm clamping torques with 0.2 mm thick gasket offer contact resistances as low as 23 mΩ cm2 and 11 mΩ cm2, respectively.

The polarisation behaviour obtained from the experiment of such configurations is found to be in good agreement with the modelling results.