Fuel Cell Store’s Single Cell Interchangeable Test Hardware was designed by one of the leading companies in electrochemical research and development to be one of the highest quality and most flexible test fixtures on the market. The test fixture is custom in-house machined from stainless steel endplates to provide flat, even compression across the entire face of your test MEA. The plates are gold plated for maximum conductivity to alleviate parasitic contact losses during your testing. The cell comes with adhesive backed heater pads on each endplate to add heat to the cell fixture.  To read the temperature of the cell, each endplate has a 1/8” smooth thermocouple port and an 10-32 tapped port for a surface mount temperature sensor. All standard versions come with serpentine plates. Other flow field options are available upon request.

Different configurations offered for this product in order to make use of this single cell fixture for various electrochemical applications such as graphite based intermediate plates, titanium intermediate plates, and nickel intermediate plates.  Graphite plate option can be used for typical PEM fuel cell applications.  Titanium plate option can be used for typical PEM electrolyzer applications.  Nickel plate option can be used for solid membrane containing alkaline fuel cells (no liquid electrolyte). The interchangeable test hardware should not be used with acids, bases, and salt solutions to prevent the corrosion to the wettable components. Interchangeable test hardware with graphite intermediate plate options can be used for standard H2/Air PEM fuel cells, H2/O2 PEM fuel cells, direct methanol fuel cells, etc.  Interchangeable test hardware with titanium intermediate plates can be used for PEM water electrolysis, PEM fuel cells, etc.  Interchangeable test hardware with nickel intermediate plates can be used for alkaline fuel cells with AEMs.  None of the configurations of interchangeable test hardware should be used with applications containing acids, bases, and salts because of potential chemical or electrochemical induced corrosion for some or all of the wetted components.  For non-standard applications or non-standard operational conditions, please contact us at sales@fuelcellstore.com to learn more about the chemical and electrochemical compatibility of this hardware.

The test fixture comes with four 1/8” NPT x 1/4” compression fittings, all internal seal O-rings (the cell will also support flat gasket seals), Grade 5 nuts and bolts (with appropriate electrical insulators) for compression, 10-32 truss screws for electrical or thermal connections (one per endplate), 1/4”-20 brass bolt with copper washer for load connections(one per endplate), and a set of standard configuration of either 25cm2 or 5cm2, serpentine flow path plates.

25cm2 design or configuration comes with two gold plated endplates and two intermediate plates where the flow fields are machined directly on one face of the intermediate plates.  There is a total of 4 plates in this design.

5cm2 design or configuration comes with two gold plated endplates and two intermediate plates where the flow fields are machined directly on one face of the intermediate plates, and two adapter plates where the reactants are channeled from endplates into the adapter plates and then into the intermediate plates and removed the same way.  There is a total of 6 plates in this design.

The primary purpose of gold plating on the thick endplates is solely to enhance electrical conductivity. Since gold plating is accomplished through the electroplating process, it exhibits a certain level of porosity and will not provide any chemical/electrochemical corrosion when exposed to acids, bases, salt solutions, etc. Electroplating gold on sharp corners, edges, etc., results in weak bonding to the underlying metal at those specific locations, and end users may observe flaking or delamination of gold under certain circumstances. This occurrence is a natural behavior for electroplated gold components. End users who encounter such issues with gold flaking can have these endplates re-electroplated at any gold plating shop.