Experimental Investigation of Current Density Distribution in Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells

摘要

During fuel cell operation the electrochemical activity over the electrode area is not homogeneous in most cases.This may be due to a non-uniform water content in the membrane,an inhomogeneous temperature distribution,and reactant gradients in the cell.Consequently a variation of the current density over the cell area occurs which tends to result in inferior performance.For in situ measurements of the current density distribution in fuel cell stacks a segmented bipolar plate was developed.The segmented bipolar plate was first tested in single cells with stack endplates to verify the function of all components.The tests showed that the measurement tool works very reliable and accurate.