Performance of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack

This work reports on the performance of a 3 kWe proton exchange membrane fu el cell under a range of loads as well as a thermodynamic analysis of the r esults. A test bench was constructed and used to evaluate the performance o f fuel cells. It was found that gross first law efficiencies of over 48 per cent and second law efficiencies of over 55 percent were achieved. The gros s work calculated from a first law analysis using measured parameters avera ged within 3 percent of the directly measured gross electrical output for t he four power levels tested. (C) 2001 International Association for Hydroge n Energy. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.