Performance enhancement of air-cooled PEMFC stack by employing tapered oblique fin channels: Experimental study of a full stack and numerical analysis of a typical single cell

Abstract

In this study, a novel cathode flow field plate with additional tapered oblique fin (OF) channels is proposed for air-cooled proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) to promote their heat dissipation and output power. Air-cooled PEMFC stacks with conventional (parallel configuration) and novel flow fields are respectively manufactured and experimentally tested under various load currents. The performance and temperature distributions of the stacks are comparatively studied in detail. Besides, a three-dimensional and two-phase numerical model is established and validated by the experiment data to further comparative investigate the heat and mass transport mechanism of the two studied flow field designs. The results show that the stack with the novel flow field has higher output power, which is 4.87% higher than that with a conventional design at a load current density of 0.55 A cm−2. Due to the forced convection and secondary vortex phenomena in the OF channels, the local overheating in the porous electrode is relieved. Moreover, the entropy generations due to heat transfer of the cathode CL and cooling channels are significantly increased. The oxygen transport under cathode ribs is also noteworthily enhanced when the OF channels are adopted.