Significance of new geometry of flow channels in proton exchange membrane fuel cell with comparing experimental and numerical methods

Abstract

The flow field geometry mainly affects the electrochemical reaction, the mass transfer, and gas diffusion layers. All these parameters affect the performance of a PEM fuel cell. In this study, a three-dimensional model is used for all parts of the fuel cell such as the flow channels, gas-diffusion electrodes, catalyst layers, and the membrane. These equations are numerically solved using a finite volume-based computational fluid dynamics technique to investigate the effect of using new geometries such as tubular, rectangular, elliptical, and triangular compared to planner-type fuel cells. Also, a test bench was designed and constructed for checking the cell and a series of experiments were done. The results show that there is good agreement between the numerical and experimental results. In summary, the tubular geometry has the best performance compared to others which can increase the execution of the fuel cell maximum by 43 %.