Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 59 (2016) 1298–1306

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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rser

Effects of operation temperature and reactant gas humidity levels

on performance of PEM fuel cells
Dilek Nur Ozen a,n, Bora Timurkutluk b,c, Kemal Altinisik d
a
Necmettin Erbakan University, Mechanical Engineering Department, 42090 Konya, Turkey
b
Nigde University, Mechanical Engineering Department, 51245 Nigde, Turkey
c
Nigde University Prof. Dr. T. Nejat Veziroglu Clean Energy Research Center, 51245 Nigde, Turkey
d
Selcuk University, Mechanical Engineering Department, 42003 Konya, Turkey

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this study, the effects of operation conditions on the performance of a polymer electrolyte membrane
Received 17 April 2015 fuel cell are investigated and the results are presented together with a comprehensive literature review
Received in revised form on the related topics. The cells with 25 cm2 active area are tested for different inlet gas humidification
5 January 2016
levels and inlet temperatures, operating temperatures and oxidant type. The cells are characterized by
Accepted 13 January 2016
the performance curves together with the cell resistance measurements. The results indicate that the
humidification of the inlet gases positively affect the cell performance. However, the improvement in the
Keywords: cell performance is higher when the cathode gas is humidified. In addition, the operating temperature
Relative humidity and the inlet gas temperatures are found to be the most significant parameters. The cell performance
PEM fuel cell
tends to increase significantly with increasing the operating and inlet gas temperatures. The effect of the
Membrane conductivity
oxidant type is also considered and the cell tested with pure oxygen shows slightly higher performance.
Mass transfer resistance
Review & 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1298
2. Experimental . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1299
3. Results and discussion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1299
3.1. Effects of reactant gas humidity levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1299
3.2. Effects of inlet gas temperatures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1302
3.3. Effects of operating temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1303
3.4. Effects of oxidant type. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1304
4. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1305
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1305

1. Introduction research for alternative sources of energy. Among the suggested

solutions, the hydrogen energy has been considered to be the best
Industrialization and population growth have resulted in an alternative to replace fossil fuels and to meet the growing energy
increase in energy needs. Growing energy demand has amplified needs. Fuel cells converting the chemical energy of the fuel
the demand for fossil fuels. As a result; air pollution, climate directly into electrical energy is one of the energy conversion
change and global warming, as well as other serious problems technologies utilizing the hydrogen energy. As one of the fuel cell
have emerged threatening the future. In addition, the fossil fuel type, polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) operate at
reserves are limited and have been consumed quickly leading to relatively low temperature around 80 °C providing quick startup
time due to less warm-up period and better durability. Although
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: þ 90 3323238220; fax: þ 90 3322362140. they generally require noble metal catalyst like Pt which is
E-mail address: dnozen@konya.edu.tr (D.N. Ozen). extremely vulnerable to impurities in the fuel such as CO, they

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2016.01.040
1364-0321/& 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 D.N. Ozen et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 59 (2016) 1298–1306 1299

have favorable power to weight ratio and thus they can be pri- low membrane water content causes low ionic conductivity leading
marily used for mobile applications including the transportation. A to a high ohmic voltage loss which reduces the cell performance
fuel cell stack consists of a number of bipolar plates (BPs), mem- significantly. That is why the reactant gases are generally moistened
brane electrode assemblies (MEAs), gas diffusion layer (GDL), in order to maintain a well hydrated membrane. In addition, the
current collectors, end plates and sealants depending on the conductivity tends to increase with the operating temperature.
desired power requirements. These parts of the stack mainly Therefore, in this study, the effects of operation conditions including
decide the cost and performance of a fuel cell stack. On the other the temperature and reactant gas humidity level as well as the oxi-
hand, the performance and durability of a fuel cell stack is also dant type on the performance of a PEMFC have been investigated.
strongly influenced by the operating conditions and design of a Although there exist a numerous reviews on different topics of
fuel cell stack such as; compression force, flow field geometry and PEMFCs in the literature [9–22], to the best knowledge of the authors
manifold design. there is no specific study summarizing the effects of significant
Recently, many studies have focused on the influence of the operating conditions on the performance of PEMFCs. Therefore, the
relative humidity (RH) and temperature of the reactant gases on results of this study are presented in a comparative way by reviewing
the PEMFC performance. Kim and Hong [1], for example, studied the related studies focusing on the effects of the operating conditions
the effects of the humidity and the operating temperature on the on the cell performance.
performance of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC)
stack. They concluded that the optimization for operating condi-
tions including the humidification and temperature are necessary 2. Experimental
for a high cell performance. In a similar study, Coppo et al. [2]
investigated the influence of the operation temperature on PEM Single cell PEMFCs with 25 cm2 of active area were used to
fuel cell operation. They found out that both liquid water transport observe the desired temperature and humidity conditions. Fig. 1
within the GDL and liquid water removal from the surface of the
shows the photograph of a single hardware set which consists of
GDL play a crucial role for determining the variations in the cell
two uniquely machined graphite flow fields, two ½ in.-thick alu-
performance with the operating temperature. Urbani et al. [3]
minum end plates, two 1/8 in. thick-gold-plated current collectors,
designed and realized a five cell air cooled PEM fuel cell stack and
four plastic rubber tubes-3/8 in. long with 0.2 mm diameter, four
systematic studies on the influence of the reactants humidification
black rubber o-rings, two plastic alignment tubes and eight
have been carried out to optimize the operating conditions.
stainless screws. The structure of the single cell is given in Fig. 2.
Similarly, Saleh et al. [4] studied the interlinked effects of the
The photographs and the schematic of the test system, on the
symmetric and asymmetric RH on the performance of H2/air fed
other hand, are shown in Figs. 3 and 4, respectively. The test setup
PEM fuel cell at different temperatures. They found that the
consists of a fuel cell load, temperature controllers, heated/insu-
internal cell resistance depends on RH of both reactants and the
lated gas lines, humidifiers, mass flow controllers, valves, fittings
cell temperature, and it is consistent with the observed cell
and tubing. The performance of the cell was measured for various
performance.
reactant gas humidity levels and temperatures for different oper-
There exist also numerous theoretical studies investigating the
ating temperatures. H2 and air stoichiometric ratio of 3:1 was
effects of the operating conditions on the cell performance. Among
adjusted for all cases studied. In addition, the cell performance
them, Wang et al. [5] investigated the effects of RH of the reactants
was also determined under both pure O2 and air.
on the cell performance and the local transport phenomena in the
proton exchange membrane fuel cells with parallel and inter-
digitated flow fields. They developed a three-dimensional model
taking into account of the effects of the liquid water formation on 3. Results and discussion
the reactant transport phenomena. They indicated that the reac-
tant RH and the flow field design significantly affect cell perfor- 3.1. Effects of reactant gas humidity levels
mance. Guvelioglu and Stenger [6] presented a new algorithm to
integrate component balances along PEMFC flow channels to It is well known that the polymer membrane should be
obtain three-dimensional results from a detailed two-dimensional maintained wet for a high efficient operation of PEMFCs since the
finite element model. They showed that the relative humidity of proton transport should be accompanied with water. This is gen-
the hydrogen and the air, as well as their flow rates, are critical for erally achieved by using humidified reactant gases. On the other
the reliability, i.e. uniform current density and power output.
Wong et al. [7] investigated the individual roles of inlet anode and
cathode humidification, and their influences on PEMFC electrical
performance systematically by using a pseudo two-dimensional
two-phase PEMFC model. They found that under the operating
conditions being studied, the influences of the inlet relative
humidity at anode and cathode are highly asymmetrical. The for-
mer mainly affects membrane conductivity while the latter mainly
influences the level of liquid water saturation due to the severity
of flooding at the cathode region. Tolj et al. [8] investigated a
concept of using the product water to internally humidify the air
stream along with a single channel in a PEMFC by a simple pseudo
2-D model. This model takes into account the mass and energy
balance, water and heat generation rates, heat removal and water
transport through the membrane. They stated that the concept
may be applied to a fuel cell stack providing a simplification of the
supporting system by avoiding the external humidification.
The conductivity of the membrane is tightly dependent on the
level of hydration of the membrane and the operating temperature. A Fig. 1. The photograph of the single cell PEMFC.
1300 D.N. Ozen et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 59 (2016) 1298–1306
Fig. 2. The structure of single cell PEMFC.
Fig. 3. The photograph of the test setup.
hand, further increase in the water content of the reactant gases
may result in flooding which limits the activity of the catalysts
since some catalyst surfaces can be possibly covered with water
limiting the reactants transport to the reaction zones. Therefore,
there can be found a numerous studies in the literature con-
sidering the effects of reactant gas humidification on the perfor-
mance of commercial or home-made cells/stacks. Some of the
results reported in the literature are compared in Table 1. It is seen
that there exists a strong relationship between the cell perfor-
mance and the anode/cathode RH.
Among the studies in the literature, Xu et al. [23] investigated
the effect of symmetric RH on a 5 cm2 active area cell performance
at 120 °C through polarization curves, electrochemical impedance
spectroscopy and cyclic voltammetry. It was shown that mem-
brane resistance of 0.407 Ω cm2 and electrode resistance of
0.203 Ω cm2 can be significantly reduced to 0.092 Ω cm2 and
0.041 Ω cm2, respectively by increasing the RH from 20% to 100%.
Zhang et al. [24] also showed that the performance of a 4.4 cm2
active area cell decreases significantly when RH is changed from
100% to 0%. The low performance was explained the limited pro-
ton transfer process to Pt catalyst verified by impedance analyses.
They later analyzed the water balance inside the same active area
PEMFC at elevated temperatures [25]. The cells were characterized
by performance, impedance and cyclic voltammetry measure-
ments under various symmetric RH conditions. The results indi-
cated that reducing RH depresses the electrode kinetics as well as
the membrane conductivity, leading to a dramatic performance
loss. Similarly, Saleh et al. [4] studied the effect of the anode and
cathode RH on a 25 cm2 cell performance. For this purpose sym-
metric and asymmetric RH conditions were considered. For sym-
metric RH tests, both the anode and cathode RH values were equal.
On the other hand, the asymmetric RH conditions were achieved
setting one of RHs to zero while varying the other from 0% to 100%.
The asymmetric tests for various anode RH values indicated that
the cell performance tends to increase with increasing anode RH.
However, an acceptable cell performance can be only obtained for
an anode RH of 100% indicating that the cathode RH is much more
effective for the hydration of the polymer membrane. Moreover,
the cell performance was found to be strongly depended on the
operating temperature. At high operating temperatures, high RH
values are required for the adequate hydration of the membrane
whereas a limited diffusion of the reactant gases may be observed
at low operating temperatures under high reactant gas RHs. Yan
et al. [26] also reported that the cathode RH has a significant effect
on the steady-state and dynamic cell performance. They found
that the medium and high cathode RH values are adequate to keep
the membrane hydrated as a result of the sufficient back diffusion
without further humidification of the anode gas. Jiang et al. [27]
investigated the effect of RH on the performance of the cell with
Sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone)s (SPEEKs) membranes for
various sulfonation degrees. It was reported that RH has a stronger
effect on the conductivity of SPEEK membranes compared to that
of Nafion. Lower RH was found to result in a higher voltage loss
due to the dehydration of the membrane.
Jeong et al. [28], on the other hand, showed that the effect of
the cathode RH on the cell performance depends on the operating
current also. Although the performance of the cell with 25 cm2
active area tends to increase with the cathode RH at low current
densities, lowered cell performance was reported in high current
region. The former was attributed to the degree of membrane
hydration which increases with increasing the cathode RH, while
the latter was explained by the limited mass transport of oxygen
due high water content of the cathode reactant gas. Recently,
Iranzo et al. [29] investigated the effect of anode/cathode RH on
the performance of a 50 cm2 commercial cell. The liquid water
distributions in the cell under different operating conditions was
also observed by neutron imaging technique. The cell performance
was found to slightly increase with the anode RH again because of
the improved protonic conductivity as a result of the hydrated
membrane. Like Saleh et al. [4] and Yan et al. [26], they concluded
that cathode RH has a larger effect on the cell performance than
the anode RH. Amirinejad et al. [30], on the other hand, concluded
just the opposite. A 5 cm2 active area cell was tested under various
operating anode and cathode RH. The results revealed that the
anode RH has a much more considerable influence on the cell
performance compared to the cathode RH.
Similar investigations were also performed in the literature for
PEMFC stacks. Among them, Urbani et al. [3] considered a five-cell
air-cooled PEMFC stack. The stack was tested under various inlet
humidity conditions. The highest performance was obtained for a
symmetrical RH of 70% and the cathode RH was reported to have a
stronger influence on the cell performance compared to that of
anode. Another study on PEMFC stack was performed by Yan et al.
[31] who evaluated the performance of a 2 kW stack performance via
impedance characterization for different air RHs. The air humidity
 D.N. Ozen et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 59 (2016) 1298–1306 1301

Fig. 4. The schematic of fuel cell test system.

Table 1
The effect of the RH of the reactant gases on the performance of PEMFCs.

Membrane Active area Operating tem- Operating current Anode RH Cathode RH Membrane resis- Electrode resis- Cell performance References
(cm2) perature (°C) density (A cm  2) (%) (%) tance (Ω cm2) tance (Ω c m2) (W cm  2)

Nafion 212 25 70–90 0.1–1.4 0–100 0–100  0.1–1.75 – 0.05–0.4 [4]

Nafion 112 5 120 0.2 20–100 20–100 0.092–0.407 0.041–0.203 – [23]
Nafion 112 4.4 80 0.1–1.2 0–100 0–100  0.1–0.5  0.25–2 0.25–0.62 [24]
Nafion 112 4.4 120 0–2.1 25–100 25–100  0.15–0.75  0.1–1.75 0.1–0.6 [25]
Nafion 112 5 65–85 0–0.5 0–100 0–100  0.15–0.65 – – [26]
SPEEK 5 80 0.2 42–100 42–100  0.09–0.15 – – [27]
Nafion 211 25 35 0.06–0.34 0 20–100  0.135–0.17 – 0.038–0.146 [28]
Nafion 117 50 60 0.2 35–90 35–90  0.45–0.65 –  0.12–0.136 [29]
Nafion 117 5 70 0.2 0–100 0–100 – –  0.075–0.13 [30]

was found to affect mainly the charge transfer resistance of the stack.
Like Jeong et al. [28], it was concluded that the air RH should be
carefully adjusted depending on the loading conditions during the
fuel cell operation. Similar results were also concluded by Eckl et al.
[32] for a 300 W PEMFC stack. It was stated that the humidity should
be carefully decided especially during the operating at low power and
elevated temperatures. Huang et al. [33] constructed a stack com-
posed of 18 open-cathode type single cells, each having an active area
of 100 cm2. The stack was tested for dry (room temperature) and
humidified (dewpoint 40 °C) at anode inlet. A decrease of 16.5% of
peak power was reported for the humidified case. The performance
degradation was attributed to the water flooding which covers the
active sides of the catalyst layer.
It is also possible to reduce the RH of the reactant gases by
modifying the polymer membrane or the electrodes. Chalkova
et al. [34], for example, showed that the cell with the 20% TiO2
added Nafion membrane at 50% RH can provide a performance
identical to that of the cell with pure Nafion membrane at 100%
RH. They also showed that the cell with Nafion/10% TiO2 mem-
brane provides four times higher current density than the stan-
dard cell at 0.6 V, 120 °C and 26% RH [35]. Ahn et al. [36], on the
other hand, focused on the modification of the electrodes with the
ionomers. The cell with EW 1000 ionomer was found to be almost
unaffected by the humidity of the cathode for cathode side
saturator temperature from 25 to 75 °C. Anilkumar et al. [37]
developed zirconium hydrogen phosphate-sulfonated poly ether
sulfone (ZrP-SPES) electrolyte. The proton conductivity of the
hybrid electrolyte was measured under various RH values and
compared to those of SPES. ZrP-SPES provided relatively a higher
proton conductivity for all RH values considered, indicating that
the reduction of reactant RH at some extent is possible with the
use of ZrP-SPES electrolyte. Devrim and Albostan [38] prepared
and tested Nafion/zeolite composite membranes with different
zeolite loading. The performance measurements on a 5 cm2 active
area cell showed that Nafion/zeolite membrane provides a better
performance than that of pure Nafion membrane at low humidity
conditions. Beside the experimental studies mentioned above,
there can be also found a numerous modeling studies in the lit-
erature investigating the effect of the reactant gas RH on the cell
performance [5–8,39–45].
In this study, in order to determine the individual effect of
anode side reactant RH on the cell performance, the cathode side
reactant gas RH, inlet temperature and cell temperature were kept
constant as 26%, 50 °C and 80 °C, respectively. The anode side
reactant RH, on the other hand, was taken as 66% and 100% cor-
responding to the inlet temperature of 70 °C and 80 °C, respec-
tively. The effects of anode side RH on the cell I–V characteristics
and resistance are illustrated in Fig. 5. Like all figures, the curves
are labeled according to the anode inlet gas/operating/cathode
inlet gas temperatures. It is seen that the cell performance tends to
increase with the anode side RH due to the reduced cell resistance
as a result of enhanced electrolyte conductivity. The slight differ-
ence in the cell performance is more obvious in Fig. 6 which shows
the power density of the cell at an operating temperature of 80 °C.
The cell under humidified H2 fuel having 66% RH exhibited
0.40 W cm  2 peak power whereas that of cell fed by H2 with 100%
RH was found to be 0.41 W cm  2. The slight improvement in the
cell performance was attributed to the increase in both RH and the
inlet temperature of the anode gas. As a result, the membrane
conductivity and reactions kinetics are enhanced.
Fig. 7 shows the effect of cathode gas RH on the cell perfor-
mance and resistance. During these measurements, the anode gas
1302 D.N. Ozen et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 59 (2016) 1298–1306
Anode RH: 66%
Anode RH: 100%
Fig. 5. The change in the cell performance and resistance with anode gas RH of 66%
and 100 %.
Anode RH: 100%
Anode RH: 66%
Fig. 6. Effect of anode gas RH (66% and 100 %) on the cell power density at 80 °C.
Cathode RH: 26, 66 and 100%
Fig. 7. The variation of the cell performance and resistance with cathode gas RH of
26%, 66% and 100%.
RH, inlet temperature and cell temperature were kept constant as
100%, 80 °C and 80 °C, respectively to find out the effect of cathode
gas RH on the cell performance only. Three different RH values of
26%, 66% and 100% corresponding to inlet temperatures of 50 °C,
70 °C and 80 °C, respectively were considered in these experi-
ments. Similar to the results of anode gas RH experiments, the
improvement in the cell performance was observed with
increasing the cathode gas RH. However, the rate of change of the
increase in the cell performance was found to be relatively higher
indicating that the humidification of the cathode gas is much more
effective for a high cell performance. The current–power density
comparison is given in Fig. 8. The cell performance under relatively
high cathode gas inlet temperature and RH was found to be higher
Cathode RH: 100%
Cathode RH: 66%
Cathode RH: 26 %
Fig. 8. Effect of cathode gas RH (26%, 66% and 100%) on the cell power density at
80 °C operating temperature.
as expected as a result of an increase in the electrolyte con-
ductivity since the back diffusion of water from the cathode to the
anode is sufficient to keep the membrane hydrated.
3.2. Effects of inlet gas temperatures
Another operating parameter affecting the performance of
PEMFCs is the anode/cathode inlet temperature. The studies in the
literature revealed that the cell performance tends to increase
with the inlet temperatures due to the improved membrane
conductivity as well as the enhanced electrode reaction kinetics at
high temperatures. Abe et al. [46], for example, focused on the
effect of the cathode humidifier temperature on the performance
of 50 cm2 active area cell by using linear current sweep, current
interrupt and impedance methods. It was found that the total
resistance of the membrane increased by 3.4 mΩ when the tem-
perature of the cathode humidifier is changed from 80 to 35 °C.
Yan et al. [47] performed performance tests for a 14.1 cm  14.1 cm
active area PEMFC under various cathode inlet temperatures
between 45 °C and 75 °C. The experimental results indicated an
enhanced cell performance with increasing the cathode inlet cell
temperature due to the improved electron transport. However, the
cathode inlet temperature was found to have a stronger effect
especially at low current densities (i.e. o 0.33 A cm  2). The effects
of both the anode and cathode inlet temperatures on the cell
performance were also studied in the literature [30,48]. Amir-
inejad et al. [30], for example, tested cells based on Nafion 117
membrane with 5 cm2 active area at 50–80 °C inlet temperatures.
The operation temperatures were adjusted to the same as the inlet
temperatures. The cell performance was reported to increase with
increasing the temperature of the inlet gases. The increase in the
cell performance with the inlet temperatures was explained by the
decreased mass transport resistance due to improved diffusivity
and the increased membrane conductivity at elevated tempera-
tures. Kadjo et al. [48], on the other hand, considered the anode
and cathode humidifier temperatures separately. The cell perfor-
mance was found to increase with increasing the anode humidifier
temperature due to the decrease of the electrical resistance of the
membrane, when the cell and cathode humidifier temperatures
were kept constant as 80 °C and 40 °C, respectively. However,
decreased in the cell performance was reported with increasing
the cathode humidifier temperature when the cell and anode
humidifier temperatures were kept constant as 80 °C and 75 °C,
respectively. This behavior was explained by again flooding of the
electrode which decreases the reactant concentration in the cat-
alytic layer as concluded by Wang et al. [49].
 D.N. Ozen et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 59 (2016) 1298–1306
To investigate the effects of inlet gas temperature on the PEMFC
performance three different inlet temperatures of 50 °C, 70 °C and
80 °C were taken into account for both anode and cathode side
while the cell temperature was kept constant again at 80 °C. Since
the cells fed by H2 and air with 100% RH were proved to have the
highest performance in the previous tests, RH for both anode and
cathode gas were kept constant as 100% for these tests. The var-
iation of the cell I–V and resistance with the inlet gas tempera-
tures are depicted in Fig. 9. It is seen that the inlet gas tempera-
tures has a substantial effect on the cell performance. The cell
performance was found to increase significantly with the inlet gas
temperatures. This behavior may be attributed to the improved
reaction kinetics and ionic conductivity at higher temperatures.
Although the operation temperature was set to 80 °C for all cases,
the inlet temperatures lower than 80 °C may have a cooling effect
on the cell leading to decrease the ionic conductivity of the elec-
trolyte. This may explain the relatively low performance values
obtained at both 50 °C and 70 °C inlet temperatures. Therefore, the
cell tested with 80 °C reactant inlet temperatures exhibited the
highest peak performance of 0.59 W cm  2 whereas the cell tested
with 50 °C reactant inlet temperatures shows only 0.14 W cm  2
peak power density as given in Fig. 10.
3.3. Effects of operating temperature
The performance of the PEMFCs is also influenced by the
operating temperature since both the mass transport and the
conductivity of the membrane are enhanced at elevated tem-
peratures. It is obvious that the operating temperature is limited
Fig. 9. The variation of the cell performance and resistance with the inlet gas
temperatures (50, 70 and 80 °C) at an operating temperature of 80 °C.
Fig. 10. Effect of inlet gas temperatures (50, 70 and 80 °C) on the cell power density
at 80 °C cell temperature.
1303
by the material limits. However, the operating temperature should
be also carefully selected by considering the hydration level of the
membrane which decreases with the operating temperature due
to a reduced condensation. Some of the results reported in the
literature are compared in Table 2. The performance values are
calculated for an operating voltage of 0.5 V from the given per-
formance curves. It is seen that the cell performance is strongly
depended on the operating temperature independent from the
type of the membrane or the cell design.
Williams et al. [50] reported that the cell performance is
strongly influenced by the operating temperature especially under
dry operation. Similarly, Natarajan and Nguyen [51] concluded that
an increase in the cell operating temperature should be accom-
panied by an increase in the anode humidification level to avoid a
performance loss. Among the other related studies in the litera-
ture, Wang et al. [49] carried out two sets of experiments on a
7.2 cm  7.2 cm active area PEMFC with Nafion 115 membrane and
0.4 mg cm  2 Pt loaded electrodes. In the first set, both the anode
and cathode humidification temperatures were kept constant at
70 °C while the cell temperature was altered from 50 °C to 80 °C.
The cell performance was shown to increase up to 70 °C. The
improvement in the cell performance was attributed to the
reduced activation losses. The performance of the cell tested at
80 °C higher than the humidification temperature, on the other
hand, was found to be lower in the lower current density region.
This behavior was explained by the inadequate hydration of the
membrane material in the catalyst layer. At high current densities,
the cell exhibited a higher performance at 80 °C due to a better
hydration of the membrane material in the catalyst layer since the
water production rate increases. In the second set, the cell and
humidification temperatures were varied from 50 °C to 90 °C. The
performance of the cell improved again with the cell temperature
because of the increase in the proton conductivity of the mem-
brane and the exchange current density as well as the limiting
current density. Kim and Min [52] measured the dynamic perfor-
mance of a 25 cm2 active area cell based on Nafion 112 at 30–50 °C
under fully humidified conditions. The cell performance was
shown to increase with the operating temperature. The lowest
performance at 30 °C was explained by especially oxygen starva-
tion due to high water content in the cathode reactant gases
leading to cathode flooding. According to Liu et al. [53], the low
performance at low operating temperatures is mainly due to the
liquid water occupying the active reaction zones. As a result, mass
transfer problems were seen. At a higher temperature, on the
other hand, not only the condensation can be reduced improving
the mass transport, but the catalytic activity of both electrodes can
be also enhanced. However, a certain amount of condensation was
stated to be required to keep the membrane wet for a high proton
conductivity. Similar findings were also reported by Yan et al. [26]
for a 25 cm2 active area cell. The cell performance tended to
increase up to an operating temperature of 75 °C while a relatively
lower performance was reported for an operating temperature of
85 °C. The improvement in the cell performance was attributed to
the increase in both gas diffusivity and membrane conductivity at
higher temperatures. However, further increase in the cell tem-
perature adversely affected the cell performance due to the
reduction in the water content in the membrane as a result of the
water evaporation at a greater rate.
Jiang et al. [27] performed similar tests for SPEEK membranes
under 100% RH conditions at different operating temperatures
between 20 and 80 °C. A performance loss of around 18% was
observed as a results of the increased cell resistance from 0.084 to
0.48 Ω cm2, when the cell temperature was decreased from 80 °C
to 20 °C at a constant current density of 0.2 A cm  2. Similarly,
Sengul et al. [54] developed and tested zeolite beta composite
membranes and SPES blend membranes based on SPEEK. It was
1304 D.N. Ozen et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 59 (2016) 1298–1306

Table 2
The effect of the operating temperature on the performance of PEMFCs.

Membrane Active area (cm2) Anode RH (%) Cathode RH (%) Operating temperature (°C) Cell performance at 0.5 V (W cm  2) References

Nafion 112 25 100 100 65  0.202 [26]

70  0.218
75  0.295
80  0.287
85  0.263
SPEEK 5 100 100 20  0.14 [27]
40  0.25
60  0.40
80  0.70
Nafion 115 51.84 100 100 50  0.66 [49]
60  0.70
70  0.74
80  0.77
Nafion 5 0 0 60  0.19 [50]
65  0.20
70  0.24
75  0.31
80  0.26
Nafion 1135 5 0 0 25 0.184 [53]
65 0.3435
SPES/SPEEK 5 100 100 60  0.19 [54]
70  0.23
80  0.27
90  0.23
Nafion 112 5 100 100 25  0.31 [55]
45  0.32
65  0.33

seen that the performance of the cell tends to increase with the
operating temperature up to a certain point. After that, a perfor-
mance loss was detected due to the thermal instability problems.
Fang et al. [55] tested PEMFC single cells with different amounts of
titanium coated anode gas diffusion layer at 25, 45 and 65 °C. The
titanium content was controlled by varying the sputtering time
and the best performance was obtained for a sputtering time of
10 min. The cell with optimum titanium content displayed 0.3708,
0.3914, and 0.4129 W cm  2 at operating temperatures of 25 °C,
45 °C, and 65 °C, respectively. The numerical studies investigating
the effects of the operating temperature on PEMFC performance
are also available in the literature [56–65].
The effect of the operating temperature on the performance of
PEMFC obtained in this study is shown in Figs. 11 and 12. In order
to avoid the cooling effect of the inlet gases on the cell, the inlet
temperatures were adjusted to the same as the operating tem-
perature while RH of both anode and cathode gases was kept
Fig. 11. The change in the cell performance and resistance with the operating
constant as 100% again. Since the ohmic resistance of the mem- temperatures between 50 and 80 °C.
brane depends on the operating temperature because of the
mobility of the protons which increases with the temperature, the
cell performance also increases with the operation temperature.
Therefore, the highest performance (0.59 W cm  2) or the lowest
resistance was obtained from the cell tested at 80 °C operating
temperature.

3.4. Effects of oxidant type

The type of the oxidant, i.e. oxygen content in the cathode gas,
is also effective for the performance of PEMFCs. Since the partial
pressure of the oxygen is much lower when the air is used as an
oxidant, the mass transport is the limiting rate as indicated by
Litster and McLean [66]. Weydahl et al. [67] investigated the effect
of cathode gas composition on the dynamic response of a 6.25 cm2
commercial PEMFC. Reducing the oxygen partial pressure was
found to have a severe impact on the cell dynamic response. The Fig. 12. Effect of operating temperature (50, 70 and 80 °C) on the cell power
cell performance increased with the oxygen partial pressure. density at 80 °C cell temperature.
 D.N. Ozen et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 59 (2016) 1298–1306
Fig. 13. Effect of pure O2 and air on the cell voltage, current density and resistance
at an operating temperature of 35 °C.
However, it was stated that the oxygen utilization should be kept
low to obtain a fast response to the dynamic loading.
In this study, the obtained results for the effect of pure O2 and
air on the cell performance and the cell resistance are shown in
Fig. 13. The cell was operated at 35 °C in these tests and the
temperatures of the inlet gases were also adjusted to the same
temperature. It is seen that the cell tested with pure O2 exhibited
slightly higher performance than that of the cell tested under air
as an oxidant. This behavior may be explained by the oxygen
transport. The dilution of the oxygen may result in increased mass
transport resistance [68]. Therefore, using pure oxygen as an oxi-
dant can improve the cell performance. The relatively lower cell
performance values, on the other hand, were attributed to the
relatively lower operating temperature.
4. Conclusions
This paper is presented to show the dependence of the PEMFC
performance on the operating temperature, the inlet gas humidifica-
tion and temperature together with a detailed literature review. The
results showed that the performance of fuel cell performance can be
enhanced by increasing the RH and temperature of the inlet gases and
the operating temperature as concluded in the related literature. This
behavior is reasonable since the membrane conductivity is known to
increase with the water content and the temperature of the mem-
brane. However, the improvement in the cell performance is more
noticeable when the operating and/or inlet gas temperatures are
increased indicating that the cell performance is highly sensitive to the
temperature change. This can be explained by the enhanced mem-
brane conductivity and the reaction kinetics at high temperatures. In
addition, the cell exhibits slightly higher performance when the pure
oxygen is used as a result of the improved mass transport and
increased reactant concentration. After the optimizations, the cell
shows 0.59 W cm  2 peak power at an operating temperature of 80 °C.
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