Study of a Flow Field Design Suitable for Scaled-Up Fuel Cell Stacks

Abstract

Fuel cells are used for automotive and stationary backup applications due to their lower operating temperature and high power density. The performance and robustness of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells are susceptible to the reactant distributions in the flow fields, operating pressure and humidity. It is crucial to maintain the critical parameters within the operating range to achieve improved performance. Moreover, water flooding on the cathode side is one of the significant issues associated with the scaled-up cells at higher power densities, leading to a drop in performance in PEMFC. This paper describes a novel flow field configuration used on the cathode side. In the present work, simulation and experimental validation are carried out on the scaled-up design consisting of oval and round shape patterns with uniform distribution at the inlet and outlet of the cathode side. A serpentine flow channel on the anode side and dual serpentine flow channel configuration as coolant flow channels are considered. This design achieves higher performance, low parasitic power requirement and uniform reactant distribution. The simulation results are validated against experiments and show good agreement with experiment results. A current density of 1.05 A/cm 2 at 0.58 V is obtained with the scaled-up design.