In-situ Monitoring of Internal Local Temperature and Voltage of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells

Abstract: The distribution of temperature and voltage of a fuel cell are key factors that influence performance. Conventional sensors are normally large, and are also useful only for making external measurements of fuel cells. Centimeter-scale sensors for making invasive measurements are frequently unable to accurately measure the interior changes of a fuel cell. This work focuses mainly on fabricating flexible multi-functional microsensors (for temperature and voltage) to measure variations in the local temperature and voltage of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) that are based on micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). The power density at 0.5 V without a sensor is 450 mW/cm², and that with a sensor is 426 mW/cm². Since the reaction area of a fuel cell with a sensor is approximately 12% smaller than that without a sensor, but the performance of the former is only 5% worse.