Enhancing Heat Removal and H₂O Retention Capability of Passive Air-Cooled Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells by Tailoring Cathode Flow-Field Design

Abstract

This paper reports novel cathode flow-field designs for passive typed air-cooled polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) to help alleviate electrolyte dehydration and performance degradation issues under excess dry air supply conditions. The proposed flow-field designs include 7 three-dimensional (3-D) patterned designs in addition to a parallel channel configuration equipped with rectangular baffles to control the airflow for more efficient heat removal. The designs were evaluated numerically using 3-D, two-phase PEMFC simulations. Compared to a typical parallel flow channel configuration, the proposed flow-field designs show better heat removal and water retention capability. The single-cell voltage was improved around 13–75 mV at the operating current density of 0.5 A/cm2, an increase in pressure from 0.9–47-fold increase was required because of the more complex flow-field configurations. This work presents a comprehensive understanding of air-cooled PEMFC operating characteristics under excessive dry air supply conditions and a new design strategy for cathode flow fields.

Enhancing Heat Removal and H2o Retention in Passive Air-Cooled Pem Fuel Cell by Altering the Flow-Field Geometry

“…shows the temperature distribution at the outer surface of the GDL for the experimental and the current simulations. According to the figure it can be concluded that the temperature distribution along the fuel cell for the current simulation has a good agreement with the experimental simulation conducted by Kisung Lim[29].…”

Enhancing Heat Removal and H2O Retention in Passive Air-Cooled Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells by Altering Flow Field Geometry

“…To validate the numerical model, Figure 10 compares the temperature distribution on the outer surface of the GDL from experimental data by Lim et al [29] with current simulations. The temperature distribution along the fuel cell from the simulation agrees well with a difference of less than 5%.…”