Enhanced cross-flow split serpentine flow field design for square cross-sectional polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell

Abstract

Enhanced Cross-flow split serpentine flow field (ECSSFF) for a rectangular cross sectional polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) has been shown to be an effective layout compared to parallel serpentine designs. The concept of ECSSFF channel layout is extended to a square cross-sectional cell in this work. This is carried out with a detailed 3D and two-phase flow coupled with electrochemistry analysis in a computational environment using ANSYS®17.2. A detailed parametric study for fuel cell having square ECSSFF channel design is presented in this work. In addition, this layout is also evaluated for its efficacy at higher active areas up to 200 cm2. The study on different channel to rib width ratios has indicated that the ratio of 1:1 results in peak performance at cell operating pressure and temperatures of 200 kPa and 70 °C for fully humidified anode reactants and 50% humidified cathode reactants. The performance of the square PEMFC with 4-channel ECSSFF design on cathode side is found to be superior to that with five parallel serpentine design and the proposed design is also found to be effective for higher active areas.