Impact of flow configuration and temperature on water flooding and membrane water content of low-temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cell

Abstract

Low-temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells (LT-PEMFCs) have emerged as promising candidates in transportation due to zero-emission, high power density and efficiency. Issues such as liquid water flooding and membrane drying significantly reduce their performance and durability during higher current density operations. Although many simplified 1-D and 2-D models have been proposed, they do not aid in understanding water dynamics and membrane water content for different flow configurations and operating temperatures. This work focuses on the development of a 3-D, multiphase, non-isothermal, physics-based model of the LT-PEMFC to address the above-mentioned issues. The model is validated with experiments performed on a 32 cm2 LT-PEMFC at 40 °C with a hybrid flow configuration. The results suggest that the hybrid configuration provides a power density enhancement of 12 % compared to the parallel configuration at 70 °C. Due to this performance improvement, ΔT of the hybrid configuration has reached 7 °C, which is slightly higher than the parallel configuration's ΔT of 5.7 °C. With an increase in operating temperature from 40 °C to 70 °C, the hybrid configuration experiences a 50% enhancement in the power density. For both temperatures, the hybrid configuration shows a consistent increment in the saturation from inlet to outlet, which creates a favorable pathway for water removal from the cell. The findings from this work suggest that the hybrid configuration is superior to the parallel configuration in terms of power density output, water removal capacity and membrane water content. This work provides valuable insight into overcoming key issues of liquid water flooding and membrane durability.