Better electrochemical performance of PEMFC under a novel pneumatic clamping mechanism

Highlights: • A novel pneumatic clamping mechanism is proposed. • The clamping mechanism importantly affects contact pressure and PEMFC performance. • PEMFC with the new clamping mechanism has better contact pressure distribution. • PEMFC with the new clamping mechanism has lower contact resistance. • PEMFC with the new clamping mechanism has better electrochemical performance. Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) has become one of the most important clean energy devices. Clamping pressure generates as PEMFC is assembled, affecting the mechanical stability and electrochemical performance of the PEMFC. Clamping mechanism is critical to the contact pressure and its uniformity as well as PEMFC electrochemical performance. In this paper, considering the possibility of generating uniform contact pressure, a novel pneumatic clamping mechanism was proposed. A single PEMFC with the novel pneumatic clamping mechanism was designed. Based on finite element method, two models of the PEMFC with the traditional clamping mechanism and the novel pneumatic clamping mechanism were established. And then, finite element analysis (FEA) was conducted using the commercial code ABAQUS. In addition, the contact pressure and electrochemical performance experiments were carried out, respectively. The accuracy of the numerical simulation was verified. The simulated and tested results show that the PEMFC under the novel pneumatic clamping mechanism had better contact pressure distribution and better electrochemical performance than the PEMFC under the traditional clamping mechanism.