Integrated laboratory workflow for proton exchange membrane fuel cell fabrication and testing

This paper is a laboratory experiment aimed at fabricating the different layers that make up the Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC), assembling it, constructing the cell, and then testing it under different operating conditions of temperature, relative humidity, type of reactant gases (air vs. oxygen), and flow rate of reactant gases into the cell. At the fabrication phase, the materials used, their quantities, as well as the detailed steps required to fabricate each layer are clarified in detail. In the testing and evaluation phase, the fabricated cell is connected to a test station, and all operating conditions are controlled; then voltage, current, and output power are measured. Through this experiment, it can be concluded that the best performance of PEMFC can be obtained when reaching the required loading of the coating materials on the different layers, as well as when distributed regularly on the substrate. As for the operating conditions, there is an improvement in the cell performance when raising temperatures and when it is operated at values of relative humidity between 80% and 100% and when oxygen flows instead of air as an oxidant in the reaction which occurs inside the cell.