Impact of Membrane-Electrode Assembly Fabrication Technique on PEM Fuel Cell Performance

PEM fuel cell performance is limited by three main sources of polarization losses: activation, ohmic and mass transport. Relative magnitudes of these differ depending upon the type of catalyst, membrane and substrate used in the fuel cell. More importantly there can also be a large variation in these losses between different cells having the same component due to the different fabrication techniques used in making the Membrane-Electrode Assembly (MEA). For a particular technique like screenprinting the processing conditions alter the performance due to the different polarization losses. These differences become more significant at higher operating cell temperature and lower relative humidity operation.