A new air supply is demonstrated for a portable polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). The air supply is an ionic wind generator (IWG) with a needle-to-cylinder configuration. The IWG supplies air to the portable PEMFC owing to momentum transfer to the air by charged molecules generated by the corona discharge from a high applied potential. There is no difference in the performance of the PEMFC when compressed air and the IWG are used as the air supply. For the varying interelectrode distance, IWG performance is varied and measured in terms of the flow rate and current At the interelectrode distance of 9.0 mm, the air flow rate is a suitable for the portable PEMFC with low power consumption. When the IWG is used to supply air to the portable PEMFC, it is found that the flow rate per unit power consumed decreases with the applied voltage, the gross power generation monotonously increases with the applied voltage, and the highest net power (268 mW) is obtained at the applied voltage of 8.5 kV. The parasitic power ratio reaches a minimum value of similar to 0.06 with the applied IWG voltage of 5.5 kV. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.