The performance improvement of membrane and electrode assembly in open-cathode proton exchange membrane fuel cell

An investigation was made to explore the effect of the structural combination of the membrane and electrode assembly (MEA) on the performance improvement of the open-cathode proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell. Two typical MEAs of GDE (gas diffusion electrode) and CCM (catalyst coated membrane) were used, and the results show that the CCM-based MEA could maximize the catalyst utilization under room temperature, and the power density was 818 mW cm−2. The employment of hydrophilic gas diffusion layers (GDLs) can further improve the performance of the CCM-based MEA at elevated cell temperature in spite of its high contact resistance and low gas permeation. The variation of cell voltage under different air stoichiometry and cell temperatures was also explored, and the results show that CCM-based MEA with hydrophilic GDLs gives good performance and stability even at 60 °C.