Optimum Operating Temperature of a Single PEM fuel Cell Enriched by Nanoparticles of Ni

The Fuel cell is an energy converter which converts the chemical energy of a chemical reaction to electricity andheat directly and without any pollution. One of the most important types of fuel cells is the PEM fuel cell.Catalysts play an important role in both costs and durability of PEM fuel cells. Alloying the Pt with othermetals can increase the activity of the catalysts of the fuel cells and also reduces the amount of costly Pt. Inthis study, The nanoparticles of Ni were added to the cathode catalyst layer of a single PEM fuel cell by usinga physical and non-wet method. For finding the structural information of these nanoparticles the XRDmeasurements were used . The effects of operating temperature on the performance of this cell were studiedby using current-voltage measurements. The results show that, performance intensively affected by thetemperature and for reaching to the better performances the cell’s temperature must be higher than hydrogen and oxygen temperatures.

Keywords:

Nanoparticle , PEM fuel cell , Polarizationcurve , Temperature effect