Water management is decisive in the commercialisation of Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel cells (PEMFCs) as poor water management leads to reduced performance and reliability. Hence, this work deals with effective water management and physically examines water removed at cathode outlet in 25 cm² PEMFC of land width by channel width of 2 x 2. Six combinations among flow fields such as parallel without slope, parallel with slope, serpentine and a novel parallel zigzag with slope are used for experimentation. Experimental results disclose that inducing cross flow among reactants, increasing exposure area of uncompressed MEA with reacting gases and backpressure increases the performance while slope at cathode increases the water removal rate of PEMFC. The novel flow field when used at the cathode with the serpentine flow field at anode accumulates advantages of the flow fields considered and enhanced the performance by about 23% than conventional serpentine flow fields due to the induced flow non-uniformity, under rib convection and better water removal rate. Additionally, to enhance the water removal and performance a silicon dioxide based ceramic ink is spray coated on the graphite plate to increase its hydrophobicity. As the electrical conductivity of silicon dioxide, a key constituent in the hydrophobic coating is limited, a blend of 2% graphene by weight with the ceramic ink is also attempted along with the durability of these flow fields for twelve hours of continuous operation

Keywords: Zig Zag Flow Field, Back Pressure, Slope in Flow Field, Cross Flow in Reactants, Ceramic ink coating, Durability Studies