Study on transport phenomena and performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cell with radial flow fields

Abstract

The radial flow field structure, which has the advantages of low pressure drop, good water removal and good mass transfer, is an emerging structure for proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) flow fields. However, optimization work on the design the structure is scarce for a complex structure that is difficult to manufacture. A comprehensive three-dimensional, non-isothermal and single-phase mathematical model is developed to describe the flow and heat, mass and charge transfer processes in a PEMFC. The transport phenomena and cell performance of radial flow fields with different gradient channels and parallel flow fields are studied and compared using the commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software Fluent^®. The distribution of oxygen concentration, pressure drop and temperature with different radial lengths is obtained. The effects of gradient channels, gas supply modes and radial lengths on cell performance are investigated. The results show that radial flow fields could offer more uniform oxygen distributions and lower pressure drops compared with parallel flow fields. Larger gradient channel sizes contribute to larger transfer volumes and higher gas molar concentrations in the catalyst layers and lower pressures in channels. The counter-flow supply mode is superior to the co-flow supply mode because it can enable a higher oxygen velocity and hence a higher current density.

KEYWORDS:

• PEMFC
• radial flow field
• gradient channel
• gas supply mode
• numerical simulation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

Fuel cell dimensions, some of the physical parameters and basic operation case conditions used in the single cell simulation are listed in table 1. If required, we can provide the detailed information and other parameters used in the model. The solution of model equaitons is by Ansys-FLUENT. There is no other associated data.