The New Energy and Industry Technology Development Organization (NEDO) road map (Japan, 2017) has proposed that a polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) system, which operates at a temperature of 90 °C and 100 °C, be applied for stationary and mobility usage, respectively. This study suggests using a thin polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) and a thin gas diffusion layer (GDL), at the same time, to achieve better power-generation performance, at a higher temperature than usual. The focus of this paper is to clarify the effect of separator thickness on the distribution of temperature at the reaction surface (T_react), with the relative humidity (RH) of the supply gasses and initial operation temperature (T_ini), quantitatively. In this study, separator thickness is investigated in a system using a thin PEM and a thin GDL. Moreover, this study investigates the difference between the maximum temperature and the minimum temperature obtained from the distribution of T_react as well as the relation between the standard deviation of T_react − T_ini and total voltage, to clarify the effect of separator thickness. The impact of the flow rates of the supply gases on the distribution of T_react is not large, among the investigated conditions. It is noticed that the temperature distribution is wider when a separator thickness of 2.0 mm is selected. On the other hand, it is observed that the temperature increases along with the gas flow through the gas channel, by approximately 2 °C, when using a separator thickness between 1.5 mm and 1.0 mm. The impact of the RH on the distributions of T_react − T_ini is larger at T_ini = 100 °C, when a separator thickness of 1.0 mm is selected. It is revealed that the wider temperature distribution provides a reduction in power-generation performance. This study proposes that the thin separators, i.e., with a thickness of 1.5 mm and 1.0 mm, are not suitable for higher temperature operation than usual.

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