Evaluation of passive and active lattice Boltzmann method for PEM fuel cell modeling

Abstract

Modeling of multi-component gas transport ( O2, N2, H2O) in a Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) cathode channel with heterogeneous porous gas diffusion layer (GDL) has been carried out using a two different lattice Boltzmann models. Generally, two passive and active methods are used for modeling single-phase, multi-component fluid flows in the Lattice Boltzmann method. In this study, the implementation of both models is described completely and their results are compared with experimental study. The results demonstrate that maximum error in active approach is only 2.5% at the common operating voltage of PEMFC and this model reaches to steady solution 33.3% faster than passive model. Also, that is found that the active method is more appropriate for complex geometry by using bounce back boundary condition on the obstacles in GDL and modify new bounce back on the reaction surface where the implementation of this boundary condition is so easy for complicated geometries.