Water Management in PEMFC Stack of Fuel Cell Vehicle

The PEMFC (Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell) requires well hydration for acceptable protonic conductivity, but liquid water in the catalyst layers and gas diffusion layers can cause performance loss due to blockage of reactants to the catalysts. Many activities have been done on the water management in PEMFC stack to guaranty better performance and its longevity. Some approaches for PEMFC stack in Hyundai-motor will be shown in this presentation based on analytic modeling, CFD, and experiment, then some challenges for better understanding of water behavior in PEMFC will be shown at the end of this paper.