Analytical investigation of voltage losses in a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell

In this study, the performance of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell is investigated analytically. At present the main use and advantages of fuel cellsimpact particularly strongly on mobile applications such as vehicles, mobile computers and mobile telephones. Some external parameters such as cell temperature( cell T ), operating pressure of gases (P) and air stoichiometry ( air  ) affect the performance and voltagelosses in PEM fuel cell. Because of the existence ofmany theoretical, empirical and semi-empirical models of voltage losses in a PEM fuel cell, it is necessary tocompare the accuracy of these models. But theoretical models that are obtained from thermodynamic and electrochemical approach, are very exact but complex,so it would be easier to use the empirical and smiempirical models in order to forecast the fuel cell system performance in many applications such asmobile applications. The main purpose of this study is to obtain the semi-empirical relation of a PEMfuel cell with the least voltage losses. Also theresults are compared with the existing experimental results in the literature and a good agreement is seen.

Keywords:

PEM fuel cell , performance , mobile application