Abstract
Commercialization of proton exchange membrane fuel cells can only materials provided its performance is closely related to existing technologies useful in commercial application. Other critical parameters like the utilization of cheaper materials should be taken into account during the manufacturing of the cell. A key component in the cell that has direct correlation to the cell performance is the flow plate. The weight coupled with cost of the cell revolves around the flow plate used in the manufacturing of the cell. This study explores materials ideal for the manufacturing of fuel cells in order to improve the overall cell performance. The investigation highlights the critical impact of varying materials used in the manufacturing of flow plates for PEM fuel cells. Stainless steel (SS), aluminium (Al) and copper (Cu) were the materials considered. The flow plate designs considered were serpentine and open pore cellular foam channel. Machine learning using python for the validation of the results with Linear regression, Ridge regression and Polynomial regression algorithm was carried out. The performance of both flow field channels was compared using different bipolar plate materials. The results show that metal foam flow channels overall performance was better than serpentine flow channels with all the various bipolar plate material used and Al material outperformed Cu and SS material. There is a direct correlation in terms of the outcome of the study and literature based on the data generated experimentally. It can however be concluded that molecules of hydrogen are stable on aluminium plates compared to copper and stainless steel.
Highlights
One of the energy converting devices currently gaining much attention among the scientific community globally if the proton exchange membrane fuel cell
These algorithms were compared in this work; linear regression, ridge regression and polynomial regression to predict the performance of the Proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell operation
This study explored the utilization of aluminium, copper and stainless steel in the development of novel flow channels to examine their impact on the overall cell performance
Summary
One of the energy converting devices currently gaining much attention among the scientific community globally if the proton exchange membrane fuel cell. With the byproduct of the electrochemical reaction in fuel cells being solely water and heat, these cells are gaining much credibility as alternative to augment current global energy demand. Their higher efficiencies make them suitable for several applications in the automotive industry. Some researchers have even argued that they are the best candidates to replace fossil products being used in harnessing energy especially in the quest of producing energy that is environmentally friendly and sustainable Though these prospects of fuel cells make them remarkable, there is still more room for improvement in terms of research as current cells have issues in terms of cost, cell life, degradation of components etc
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