Effects of Copper Corrosion in the Performance of Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells

Copper plates are widely used as the current collectors in Polymer Electrolyte Membrane fuel cells. With exposure to the atmosphere, copper oxidizes and causes bright copper surfaces to tarnish. This corrosion results in decreasing the current produced. This paper aims to examine the effects of copper corrosion in the performance of PEM fuel cell. The experiments were conducted on a single PEM fuel cell with working area of 25cm(2) without cell heating. The feed velocities of hydrogen and oxygen were fixed at 0.5 and 0.75 L.min(-1), respectively. To bring out the effect of corrosion, a set of copper plates were kept open to the atmosphere in the temperature range of 30 - 40 degrees C for 2 months. Then the corroded copper plates were used as current collectors in the PEM fuel cell and the performance was monitored. It was observed that ohmic losses increased drastically and the maximum voltage drop was 0.4V.