Effect of compressing pressure on performance of a DMFC

Fuel cell is regarded as advanced energy conversion technology involving energy sources and environment. In this paper, the effect of compressing pressure during the assembling procedure for a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) was investigated taking fuel cell performance, methanol crossover and contact resistance into account. It was found that with increasing compressing pressure, the contact resistance between bipolar plate and membrane electrode assembly (MEA) decreased first sharply and then leveled off. With an increase in compressing pressure, the methanol crossover was significantly depressed. The results showed the existence of balance between contact behavior and mass transfer, which both affected the final fuel cell performance.