Naslov
Computational fluid dynamics model of high performance Proton Exchange Membrane fuel cell without external humidification

Autori
Penga, Željko ; Barbir, Frano

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Radovi u zbornicima skupova, cjeloviti rad (in extenso), znanstveni

Izvornik
Energija i okoliš 2016/Energy and the Environment 2016 / Franković, Bernard - Rijeka : Hrvatski savez za sunčevu energiju, 2016, 147-156

ISBN
978-953-6886-23-4

Skup
Međunarodni kongres Energija i okoliš 2016

Mjesto i datum
Opatija, Hrvatska, 26.10.2016. - 28.10.2016

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Poster

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
Self-humidified PEMFC, Computational fluid dynamics, Non-uniform temperature field

Sažetak
Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) performance depends on the amount of water present inside the ionomer membrane, since the protonic conductivity of the membrane is proportional to the membrane water content. The mass balance of electro-chemical reactions inside an operating cell shows that sufficient amount of water is generated during PEMFC operation inside the cathode catalyst layer to keep the membrane well hydrated, without the need for external humidification. However, most of the commercially available PEMFC stacks use external humidification units on a regular basis. The usage of external humidification results in higher specific volume of the stack, higher complexity and maintenance requirements, narrow operating range and consequently higher system costs, hindering the potential of PEMFCs in replacing the internal combustion engine in automotive applications. High performance operation without the need for external humidification presented in this work is based, and proven experimentally, on establishing a non-uniform temperature flow field for PEMFC. This novel concept demonstrates numerous advantages over the common approach where isothermal temperature field is considered, without compromising the performance, while the flooding of the channels and gas-diffusion layers is reduced, and at the same time enables high performance operation for a wide range of operating parameters. The non-uniform temperature field required for such operation is determined using the Mollier h- chart, by calculating the generated amount of water per channel length and determining the required temperature profile which will result in close to 100% relative humidity along the entire flow field. The developed 3D computational fluid dynamics model takes into consideration different physical processes inside an operating cell and shows very good agreement with the experimental results from previous studies for different operating parameters.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Strojarstvo

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