Effects of Membrane- and Catalyst-Layer-Thickness Nonuniformities in Polymer-Electrolyte Fuel Cells

In this paper, results from mathematical, pseudo two-dimensional simulations are shown for four different along-the-channel thickness distributions of both the membrane and cathode catalyst layer. The results and subsequent analysis clearly demonstrate that for the membrane thickness distributions, cell performance is affected a few percent under low relative-humidity conditions and that the position along the gas channel is more important than the local thickness variations. However, for the catalyst-layer-thickness distributions, global performance is not impacted, although for saturated conditions there is a large variability in the local temperature and performance depending on the thickness.