The Effect ofDifferent Membrane and Fuel Cell Operational Conditions on Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel cell Performance for UPS

This paper describes the model of aproton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEM fuel cell)for a one kilowatt UPS system. One of the critical issues to overcome in the PEM fuel cells is the water management. In this paper a steady state, two dimensional, isothermal model in a single PEM fuel cell using individual computational fluid dynamics code is presented. Different membranes are compared to investigate the effect of operating condition on the polarization curve of fuel cell. The maximum power of fuel cell with Gore-select membrane is the highest and the model predicts that the amounts of different fluxes of water are strong function of current density, which is related to external load. The model prediction polarization curves are compared with model predictions data reported in the validated open literature and a good compatibility is observed.