International hydrogen association for hydrogen energy design competition applied topic A: Portable fuel cell

The Penn State chapter of the International Association for Hydrogen Energy supplied a team of 12 members to enter the 1st IAHE Hydrogen Design Competition. Our design team decided to build a portable fuel cell. The design objective was to limit the cell size to 6 cm × 6 cm × 2 cm, and the goal was to achieve maximum power over 1 h of operation. The type of fuel cell we chose was a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell, using hydrogen and oxygen as the fuel and oxidizer, respectively. The final design converged to a cell stack containing 6 bipolar/end plates, i.e. 5 cells, each measuring 6 cm × 6 cm × 1.975 cm, each with an active area of approximately 25 cm2. The total open circuit voltage was approximately 4.75 V, indicating an average 0.95 V per cell. With an active area of 25 cm2, the maximum power observed during operation was approximately 1.7 W cm−2. The maximum sustained power over 1 h averaged 1.15 W cm−2. The total cost of the project totaled $2245.