Design of Experiments to Evaluate Material Characteristics of Porous Transport Layers in Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells

Abstract

Designed experiments using statistical methods enable an efficient and economic experimental approach that can account for factor interaction. This work employs a two-level split-plot design to study the influence of material characteristics of the gas diffusion layer (GDL) in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFC). The factors used in this design included six operating parameters (anode stoichiometry, cathode stoichiometry, temperature, anode inlet relative humidity and cathode inlet relative humidity and gas pressure) and a categoric factor (“Type of GDL”). At each test point, a voltage response was measured under galvanostatic conditions at 1.0 A/cm2. The results show a good fit of the model based on predicted results and residuals. The analysis demonstrates design of experiment methods to be an adequate tool for evaluating the influence of the tested GDL materials.