Application of Lattice Boltzmann Method to the Simulation of Multiphase Flow in the Inhomogeneous Porous Electrode of a PEM Fuel Cell

Abstract

The lattice Boltzmann (LB) method is applied to the multi-phase flow phenomenon in the inhomogeneous gas diffusion layer of a PEM fuel cell. The inhomogeneous porous structure of the carbon cloth and carbon paper has been modeled as void space and porous area using Stokes/Brinkman formulation and void space and impermeable fiber distributions obtained from microscopic image. The permeability of the porous medium is calculated and compared to the experimental measurements in literature showing a good agreement. Simulation results indicate that the permeability of the medium is strongly influenced by the fiber orientations. Present LB flow models are applied to the multi-phase flow simulations by incorporating multi-component model with inter-particle interaction. The model successfully simulates the complicated unsteady behaviors of liquid droplet motion in the porous medium providing a useful tool to investigate the mechanism of liquid water accumulation/removal in a gas diffusion layer of a PEM fuel cell.

Progress in 3D electrode microstructure modelling for fuel cells and batteries: transport and electrochemical performance

“…The LBM is capable of simulating both single-phase [242,243] and multi-phase [179,[244][245][246][247][248][249][250][251][252][253] flows in an arbitrary pore space geometry and topology rather than using a simplification of the pore space geometry. Therefore, LBM has been used to simulate realistic microstructures.…”

“…to simulate cell performance [238][239][240][241][242][243]. The continuum models have also been made to investigate the effect of the electrode properties on the cell performance.…”

“…In macroscopic continuum models [26,27,[268][269][270], volumetric averaging conservation equations, such as mass, momentum, charge and energy, are solved in each elementary volume and the porous electrode is assumed as homogeneous continuum with isotropic or anisotropic transport properties. Most continuum models have been used to simulate cell performance [238][239][240][241][242][243]. The continuum models have also been made to investigate the effect of the electrode properties on the cell performance.…”

The effect of wetting area in carbon paper electrode on the performance of vanadium redox flow batteries: A three-dimensional lattice Boltzmann study

“…However, because the influence of porous structures of the electrode is neglected in macroscopic models, the active wetting surface area available for electrochemical reactions is not based on measurement of the actual electrode geometry and there is no detail information is provided about how this parameter affect on the performance of VRFB. Alternatively, the pore-scale models provide an efficient way for in-depth understanding of transport phenomena in porous media [28][29][30]. Lattice Boltzmann method has successfully been applied at pore scale simulation where detailed of the porous structure of the domain is required.…”

Two-Phase Dynamics and Hysteresis in the PEM Fuel Cell Catalyst Layer with the Lattice-Boltzmann Method

“…24 The main reason why real representations of the geometry haven't been adopted by the fuelcell community is the difficulty in obtaining these images; however, this barrier is gradually being lifted by the community through the work of More, 25 Borup, 26 Litster, 27 and others. 13,28,29 mid to late 2000s, LBM has become more popular with the PEMFC community due to its ability to better resolve pore effects, first debuting for the GDL in around 2005 from works by Mukherjee, 30 Wang, 31 Niu, 32 Park, [33][34][35] and others. The work was then expanded to the CCL by Mukherjee, [36][37][38] and finally has expanded into what is seen today, with 74 papers on Web of Science published on the cathode side since 2018 alone.…”