Analysis of Nonuniform Cell Voltage Distribution in a PEMFC Stack Available to Purchase

The nonuniform cell voltage distribution greatly influences design complexity, heat management and system performance, such as life time, reliability and output power, etc., in a real PEMFC system. To get insight into the corresponding influence factors, a fully coupled non-isothermal, electrochemical and transport 3D model for a 10-cell PEMFC stack with coolant channels is set up in this paper and the nonuniform characteristics are reconstructed under the defined operating conditions by simulations. It is found that the temperature profile in the stack has an important impact on the cell voltage distribution through influencing the distribution of activation potential and ohmic overpotential.