Regression Analysis of High Temperature PBI Based PEMFC Performance

Four factors are used to investigate the effect of temperature, pressure (of air and hydrogen) and current (load) on the output voltage (response variable) of a 45 cm2 high temperature polybenzimidazole (PBI) based proton exchange membrane fuel cell. A statistical approach is introduced to obtain a good regression model to unravel the impact of these factor variables on the response variable. The validation of the model is achieved by using various comparison statistical tests applied upon the experimentally observed data. In most cases the results show a good agreement between hypotheses based on the early obtained experimental observations and this massive data approach. We conclude that there are a sufficiently large number of regression models which accurately predict the behavior of the cell within the range of variables tested and modeled.