The effect of vibration on PEM fuel cell performance

The presence of liquid water in the cathode gas diffusion layer (GDL) of PEM fuel cells, limits the flow of reactants to the cathode catalyst layer, thereby reducing the overall reaction rate and decreasing the maximum power that can be derived from the cell. In this work, the effect of the vibration on cell performance has been investigated. In fact, the main goal is to prevent the water flooding in the cathode side of PEM fuel cell by adding local vibration on this side.The results show that vibration has no effect on cell performance at higher temperature. However, it has significant positive effect at lower temperature.