We present a method for distinguishing liquid water content in the different layers of a polymer electrolyte fuel cell ("anode flow channels", "cathode flow channels", and "GDL/MEA") from through-plane neutron imaging. The method is based on sudden decompression of the anode and cathode sides of a cell in two separate steps. The decompression induces a strong purging effect with effective liquid water removal from the flow channels, without affecting the gas diffusion layers (GDL) and membrane electrode assembly (MEA). The water in the flow channels is imaged by the differences of water distribution before and after the corresponding purges, and the water remaining after the purges is considered to be GDL/MEA water. The method is valid both for qualitative and quantitative analysis. A validation of the method is presented in this work, including results obtained for a 50 cm(2) commercial PEFC. (C) The Author(s) 2015. Published by ECS. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 License (CC BY-NC-ND, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is not changed in any way and is properly cited. For permission for commercial reuse, please email: [email protected]. All rights reserved.