Study on the performance and characteristics of fuel cell coupling cathode channel with cooling channel

Abstract

Water flooding in the cathode channel of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), which reduce the current density output and affect fuel cell lifetime. Hence, to suppress water flooding, a novel channel is proposed in this study, that is to perforate hole between the cooling channel and cathode channel. A 3D numerical model is used to investigate the influence of the parameters including the hole's dimension, position, numbers, the operation conditions of the PEMFC and the slope angle (θ) of the incline cooling channel. The numerical results indicate that the optimal single hole parameters are 0.4 mm long, 0.5 mm wide and 20 mm position, which can maximum the current density output of the PEMFC. Increasing the hole numbers for novel channels can improve water removal. In addition, in comparison with the conventional channel with θ = 0.20° at 1.8 cathode stoichiometry, the H5 (novel channel with five holes) with θ = 0.20° decreases by 43.10% in the maximum water saturation of cathode channel, while increases by 12.54% in current density output. What's more, all the novel channel structure research hardly raises the pressure drop of channels.