Comparison of perforated and serpentine flow fields on the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cell

Abstract

Flow channel design is a significant criterion that affects the performance and water transport characteristics of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC). In this study, a perforated flow field is designed and fabricated to improve the performance of PEMFC in comparison with conventional serpentine flow field. This perforated flow field plate is designed in such a way that it consists of numerous holes of 2 mm diameter in a regular pattern on the entire active area of 25 cm2. The effect of perforated flow field on the cell performance at various relative pressures of reactants are evaluated and compared with the conventional single pass serpentine flow field. The experimental results show that perforated flow field delivered a peak power density of 242 mW/cm2 whereas with serpentine flow field a maximum power density of 230 mW/cm2 is achieved. On comparison with serpentine flow field, the perforated flow field showed an increase in power density of about 5.8%, 6.5% and 5.2% at relative pressures of 0, 0.5 and 1 bar respectively. Further, the cell impedance test reveals that the cell with perforated flow field plates shows least impedance. The conductance of the flow field plates have been calculated and found to be almost equal for both perforated and serpentine channel geometry.