Experimental investigation on PEM fuel cell using serpentine with tapered flow channels

The performance comparison of various flow fields for practical application can be better understood when loading the cell at a lower voltage region for an operational duration of more than an hour. In this paper, the performance of serpentine and serpentine with tapered channels are compared by loading the Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) fuel cell at a constant voltage of 0.5 V for an operational duration of 5 h. Purging with nitrogen at the inlets is done to recover the drop in current over the period of operation and flush out water. The presence of tapered flow fields in a serpentine flow channel shows an improvement of 15% in the current obtained due to better reactant gas transport in the gas diffusion layer. The performance of both flow fields were studied with polarization and power density curve obtained after 5 h of testing. Further, to confirm the performance improvement at lower voltage region, impedance study is done and obtained Nyquist plot confirms the better transport phenomenon of reactant gases to catalyst site and better removal of water in Gas Diffusion Layer (GDL). (C) 2020 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.