Performance studies of PEM fuel cells with interdigitated flow fields

Efforts in developing various models for PEM fuel cells have been increasing in recent years, and thus creating an urgent need for systematic experimental data on fuel cells with commercially available components. Such systematic experimental data is also needed by new fuel cell developers to accelerate their system development and optimization. To meet these needs, we present in this paper systematic experimental data on the performance of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell with interdigitated flow fields. The experiments concentrate on the effects of cell temperature, gas humidification, cell operating pressure and reactant gas flow rate. The experimental results are presented in the form of polarization curves. In addition, a three-dimensional fuel cell mathematical model is used to simulate the cell performance with the interdigitated flow fields. The comparison of the modeling results and experimental data shows a good agreement. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.