Analysis of Sensitivity of PEMFC Parameters to Non-Uniform Platinum Deposition

In this paper the sensitivity of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) parameters to catalyst variations is analyzed using the adjoint method. The adjoint method is used to compute the catalyst sensitivity functions, which show how much a given parameter of the cell increases by adding one unit mass of Pt at a given location in the catalyst layers. Numerical results are presented for the sensitivity of polarization voltage at different values of the operating current for a 25 μm membrane PEMFC. The results show that the catalyst sensitivity functions depend on the operating current and voltage, as well as the catalyst distribution.