PEM Fuel Cells

What is a PEM fuel cell? Well, it all depends on

who you ask! Some will call them “plastic electrolyte membrane” fuel cells, while others will call
them “proton exchange membrane” fuel cells.
Whatever you call them, PEM fuel cells are very
versatile, with the advantage that they will happily
work at low temperatures.
This is what makes them useful for our experimentation purposes—we can play with them at
home at room temperatures, as opposed to some of
the high-temperature fuel cells in this book which
require searing heat for their operation.
As with all our fuel cells, electrochemical
reactions are taking place inside them, which release
the energy produced as a result of the oxidation of
hydrogen in the form of electricity. This is opposed
to releasing it by oxidation in the form of combustion, which is horribly inefficient.
One of the disadvantages of PEM fuel cells is
that they are easily poisoned by carbon monoxide,
and metal ions. This makes them very sensitive
to hydrogen that is not pure—and with fuel cells,
damage can be expensive to repair!
How do PEM fuel cells
work?
Take a look at Figure 7-1, and we’ll slowly work
through the operation of a PEM fuel cell. We can
see the cell represented schematically in this
diagram.
You can see the hydrogen entering on the anode
side of the fuel cell, the oxygen entering on the
cathode side of the fuel cell, and the membrane in
the middle. The membrane is coated with catalyst
on both sides.
We are going to break the process down into a
series of steps. In reality, this is a continuous