In this paper, the effect of temperature on the performance of a dead-end cascade H-2/O-2 polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell stack is investigated. The PEM fuel cell stack, humidifier and separator are modeled mathematically. The cascade stack with two stages is considered to use almost all reactant gases during operation. Accumulated water of both cathode and anode sides is removed by the use of periodical purging. The obtained model can simply present the behavior of dead-end PEM fuel cell, which can further be used for identification and control purposes. Moreover, comparison of cascade PEM fuel cell operation in a dead-end mode with an open-end mode is presented. Copyright (C) 2015, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.