Lightweight PEMFC bipolar plates

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 124 KB
• Volume: 4
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1464-2859
• DOI: 10.1016/s1464-2859(01)80738-0

✦ Synopsis

An experimental DMFC, designed and manufactured in-house, was used in this study. Three graphite anode plates were machined with the same flow channel configuration, but different channel depths. By comparing the RHE polarization with the methanol-oxygen polarization experiments, polarization losses at the oxygen cathode accounted for 40-50% of the overpotential. Polarization measurements indicate that the medium-depth flow channels performed better than either the shallow or deep flow channels, indicating that there is a complex relationship between the effect of flow velocity and the influence of the rate of production of product CO 2. In the case of the shallow channel anode, AC impedance spectroscopy revealed that it took considerably longer ro achieve steadystate than for the medium and deep channels.