This paper proposes a novel planar type lightweight current collector for proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) designed for low power portable applications. The proposed lightweight current collector, which is composed of a substrate, electrical conduction layer and corrosion resistance layer, combines the conventional metal sheet/mesh for current collecting and substrate together to reduce the possible distortion during operation caused by the mismatch due to large different mechanical properties between components. The current collector adopts FR-4 as the substrate material. The electrical conduction layer is made via coating a copper thin film using a thermo-evaporation layer. The corrosion resistance layer is made via coating a graphene thin film using spin coating and a vacuum oven process. Fabricated current collector sheet resistance measurements are conducted. The complete current collectors are assembled into a single cell PEMFC with both forced convection air-breathing cathode and self-air-breathing cathode. The related performance and stability experiments were conducted to investigate the feasibility for further applications. (C) 2018 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.