Gas crossover through the membrane is well known phenomena in PEM fuel cells. Characterization of oxygen crossover which represents the permeation was investigated in this study. Oxygen crossover from the cathode side to the anode side causes the carb...
Gas crossover through the membrane is well known phenomena in PEM fuel cells. Characterization of oxygen crossover which represents the permeation was investigated in this study. Oxygen crossover from the cathode side to the anode side causes the carbon corrosion which affects the fuel cell durability. Thus it is important to analyze the characterization of oxygen crossover in PEM fuel cells at various conditions such as different cell temperature and relative humidity of supplying gases. In this study, mass spectrometer has been applied at anode exit stream to measure the amount of oxygen crossover at OCV condition. Instead of supplying hydrogen gas, helium gas was supplied at anode side because helium gas does not react with oxygen gas at anode side. Results show that temperature and relative humidity affect the oxygen crossover. As temperature increases, anode exit concentration of oxygen decreases due to the change of oxygen concentration at cathode side.