Abstract
A recent physics-based model for liquid and gaseous water transport in the cathode catalyst layer (CCL) is incorporated into our 1d ＋ 1d model for the PEM fuel cell impedance. The model includes parametric dependencies of the CCL oxygen diffusivity and proton conductivity on the liquid saturation. Fitting of the 1d ＋ 1d model to experimental impedance spectra of a PEM fuel cell reveals two intriguing effects. Contrary to common belief, the liquid water saturation in the CCL is nearly independent of cell current density due to the growing liquid pressure gradient that drives liquid water removal from the CCL. Further, the “dry” oxygen diffusivity of the catalyst layer increases with cell current density. Apparently, at small current density, electrochemical conversion proceeds primarily in narrow pores, where the Knudsen oxygen diffusivity is low. With growing current density, larger and better connected pores with higher oxygen diffusivity dominate in the current conversion, leading to increase in effective oxygen diffusivity observed in impedance spectroscopy data.
Published Version
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