Effect of humidity content and direction of the flow of reactant gases on water management in the 4-serpentine and 1-serpentine flow channel in a PEM (proton exchange membrane) fuel cell

Khazaee, Iman; Sabadbafan, H.

doi:10.1016/j.energy.2016.02.026

Cited by 56 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Figure shows the full geometry view of the PEM‐FC having a single serpentine channel with electrolyte area of 25 cm 2 which is considered for validation. The flow channel used for validation is a serpentine parallel flow channel similar to that used in the literature …”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To solve the PEM‐FC numerically, the model requires following assumption in order to operate PEM‐FC in the steady‐state manner, the flow of reactant and oxidant in the channel have been assumed as ideal gas and laminar, the flow velocity of both gaseous and liquid phases are same, and the porous layer and electrode layer are considered as isotropic in nature . To run the PEM‐FC in a steady‐state manner and to avoid the higher liquid loading, the above assumption is used during the operation of PEM‐FC.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The varying relative humidity is considered at the inlets of anode and cathode to study the performance of PEM‐FC at different humidification conditions. For the purpose of validation, the humidification of 10% and 50% is considered to the predict the numerical results compared with the Khazaee et al For analysing the designs in scaled‐up PEM fuel cells, the relative humidities are varied between 10%, 50%, and 100% to study a more detailed effect of relative humidities of different species at anode and cathode inlets of PEM‐FC.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Liquid water transport within PEM fuel cells is very critical to its performance. PEM‐FC operating temperature is 60°C to 80°C, less than 100°C; hence, the condensation of water vapour will takes place when its partial vapour pressure exceeds the local saturation pressure at its corresponding saturation temperature of 50°C in this numerical study and also has been reported by Khazaee et al The protons which are transferred through the membrane electrolyte will react with oxygen anions to form water molecules in the cathode side. The higher amount of H 2 O liquid in the cathode side leads to flooding which results in deteriorating the performance and overall life of a PEM‐FC.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effect of flow fields and humidification of reactant and oxidant on the performance of scaled‐up PEM‐FC using CFD code

Selvaraj

Rajagopal

2019

Int J Energy Res

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Summary The present study focuses on three‐dimensional two‐phase CFD investigation on scaled‐up proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEM‐FC) for an active area of 100 cm2 with different designs of serpentine and parallel flow configuration. The humidification of hydrogen and oxygen is varied from 10% to 100% to study the PEM‐FC performance. The numerical results of polarization curves predicted in this study have been numerically validated with that of the literature for both parallel and counter serpentine flow channels with active area of 24.8‐cm2 PEM‐FC. Further upon validation, the numerical study is extended for scaled‐up PEM‐FC with active area of 100 cm2 with different flow path designs to study its performance characteristics namely polarization curves, species concentration distribution, water content in the membrane electrolyte, and proton conductivity to evaluate the fuel cell performance. The three‐dimensional CAD models are created in SOLIDWORKS 10.0 and are discretised hexahedrally using finite volume method. The various governing equations namely conservation of mass, momentum, energy, species concentration, and electrochemical equations are solved numerically with the necessary boundary conditions using the CFD code. The novel design of straight zigzag flow path shows the better performance output over the other designs investigated which is having a higher power density of 0.3711 W/cm2 for 100% relative humidity of reactant and oxidant.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Effect of flow fields and humidification of reactant and oxidant on the performance of scaled‐up PEM‐FC using CFD code

Selvaraj

Rajagopal

2019

Int J Energy Res

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“…As RH on anode side increased, there was an improvement in the cell performance, but if cathode RH was increased, the performance deteriorated. Khazaee and Sabadbafan developed a two‐phase 3‐D model of PEMFC with 1‐serpentine and 4‐serpentine channels to analyze the effect of direction of flow and humidity of reactant gasses for water management. Their results showed improvement in performance with increasing RH at low voltages for 4‐serpentine channel design and for all voltages in case of 1‐serpentine.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detailed analysis of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell with enhanced cross‐flow split serpentine flow field design

Abdulla

Patnaikuni

2019

Int J Energy Res

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Summary Most generally used flow channel designs in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are serpentine flow designs as single channels or as multiple channels due to their advantages over parallel flow field designs. But these flow fields have inherent problems of high pressure drop, improper reactant distribution, and poor water management, especially near the U‐bends. The problem of inadequate water evacuation and improper reactant distribution become more severe and these designs become worse at higher current loads (low voltages). In the current work, a detailed performance study of enhanced cross‐flow split serpentine flow field (ECSSFF) design for PEMFC has been conducted using a three‐dimensional (3‐D) multiphase computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model. ECSSFF design is used for cathode part of the cell and parallel flow field on anode part of the cell. The performance of PEMFC with ECSSFF has been compared with the performance of triple serpentine flow design on cathode side by keeping all other parameters and anode side flow field design similar. The performance is evaluated in terms of their polarization curves. A parametric study is carried out by varying operating conditions, viz, cell temperature and inlet humidity on air and fuel side. The ECSSFF has shown superior performance over the triple serpentine design under all these conditions.

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Preparation of graded microporous layers for enhanced water management in fuel cells

Lin

Hong

et al. 2020

J of Applied Polymer Sci

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The newly prepared gas diffusion layer (GDL) was studied in this article. The new GDL mainly includes a carbon paper layer and two microporous layers (MPLs) on the same side of carbon paper. The two MPLs were fabricated by using conductive carbon blacks of two different carbon morphology, Vulcan XC‐72, and acetylene black carbon, respectively. From the results of the water contact angle and conductivity, it was found that the GDL prepared by spraying has not only good hydrophobicity but also low resistivity. Polarization curve and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy indicated that the spraying sequence of two different carbon black pastes seriously affects the fuel cell performance, and the mercury intrusion test proved that the change in the fuel cell performance is due to the change in the pore‐size distribution of the newly prepared GDL. By comparing with commercial GDL29BC, the GDL first sprayed with a layer of acetylene black carbon and then a layer of Vulcan XC‐72 has more pore size of 7–20 μm and 20–100 μm to improve the water and gas management capability of proton exchange membrane fuel cells. When the humidity is 60%, the maximum power density is increased by 25%, and when the humidity is 100%, it is increased by 12%.

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Effect of humidity content and direction of the flow of reactant gases on water management in the 4-serpentine and 1-serpentine flow channel in a PEM (proton exchange membrane) fuel cell

Cited by 56 publications

References 8 publications

Effect of flow fields and humidification of reactant and oxidant on the performance of scaled‐up PEM‐FC using CFD code

Effect of flow fields and humidification of reactant and oxidant on the performance of scaled‐up PEM‐FC using CFD code

Detailed analysis of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell with enhanced cross‐flow split serpentine flow field design

Preparation of graded microporous layers for enhanced water management in fuel cells

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