A Computational Model for the Prediction of Net Power in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells

Abstract

This paper aims to quantify the rate of improvement of electrical energy due to oxygen enrichment. For a specific membrane effective area (MEA), the flow field (FF) designer is always ready to design the FF to maximize the amount of oxygen in all areas of the catalyst layer (CL). Using the guidelines in this paper, FF designers, without cumulative computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calculations, can predict the rate of electrical energy gain due to 1 % enrichment in the amount of oxygen present in the CL. A 3D CFD tool was used to answer this question. These three constant steps of the reaction product simulate the humidified air mixture at the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). Results show that the analytic methods and the dynamic computational method introduced in this paper are similar in results, and the error of the CFD model is about 1.9 % compared to the analytic method.