Experimental investigation on thermal management of proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack using micro heat pipe array

Abstract

• A new PEMFC thermal management method based on MHPA is proposed. • MHPA reduces the temperature of air-cooled PEMFC and improves the internal temperature uniformity. • MHPA realizes the separation of PEMFC reaction air and cooling air, and strengthens the heat dissipation. As a result of the limited air cooling capacity, the heat dissipation problem of air-cooled proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) may limit the increase in power generation. In this research, the high-efficiency heat transfer element micro heat pipe array (MHPA) is integrated into the bipolar plate, and it is applied to the thermal management of PEMFC to realize the separation of reaction air and cooling air. A MHPA-PEMFC comprising 50 single cells is designed, and a series of comparative experimental studies are conducted. Results show that MHPA effectively improves the temperature distribution inside PEMFC. Compared with traditional PEMFC, the average temperature, maximum temperature difference, and maximum Index of Uniform Temperature of MHPA-PEMFC are reduced by 11.58 °C, 5.10 °C and 0.97 °C, respectively. When the reaction air flow rate is 160.8 m 3 /h, the maximum output power is 197.3 W higher, and the mass power density and volume power density are increased by 12.2% and 9.5%, respectively. The heat dissipation of MHPA’s cooling channel can account for up to 50.5% of the theoretical heat production, but the proportion decreases with the increase in reaction air flow. The results provided a basis for the application of MHPA to PEMFC thermal management.