Abstract
The authors developed PEM fuel cells consisting of thin separators with the thickness of 0.8mm. The paper investigates the channel depth in the separators on cell performance and the pressure losses. The result shows that the pressure loss increases inversely proportional to the third power of the channel depth and it increases significantly for the channel depth less than 0.2mm. Compared with the channel depth of 0.5mm, the channel with 0.3mm depth showed better cell-voltage-performance: voltage fluctuation was smaller with 0.3mm depth and the cell voltage itself was higher than the 0.5mm channel particularly at higher current density conditions. This result indicates that specific value of pressure loss or gas velocity is necessary for the cell to supply cathode gas to the catalytic layer without flooding. This suggests the possibility of straight channels with thin depth to give good performance.
