Abstract
A two-dimensional computational proton ex-change membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) model is presented to investigate the effects of operating parameters such as overall ohmic resistance, cathode side charge transfer coefficient, operating pressure, and fuel cell temperature on PEMFCs. A single phase, compressible and isothermal flow of reactant-product mixture in the air-side electrode of PEM fuel cell with straight gas channel is considered. The mixture is composed of three species: oxygen, water vapor and nitrogen. The model presented in this paper is a typical three-layer that consists of cathode-side gas flow channel, cathode-side gas diffusion layer and cathode-side catalyst layer. For the present computation the assembly of the software packages Gambit+Fluent is used to solve this predictive model through SIMPLE algorithm and the modeling results are illustrated via local current density curve, oxygen sink curve and performance curves including I–V and I–P curves. The results reveal that the net transport of reacting species through porous layers toward the catalyst layer and also the performance of PEMFC can be enhanced by increasing cathode side charge transfer coefficient, operating pressure and operating temperature. Also the overall ohmic resistance (σ) is investigated which is the structural parameter that has the most significant influence on PEMFC performance. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.mech.19.6.5989
Highlights
The wide range of applications from cell phones to new vehicle generation makes proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) a distinguished type fuel cells, expected to play a key role in the future energy system
PEMFCs combine the advantages of running on low operating temperature, high energy efficiency and low pollution levels
As it can be seen, the grid network consists of three zones of cathode channel, gas diffusion layer (GDL) and catalyst layer (CL) that their interior surfaces are shown with the blue lines
Summary
The wide range of applications from cell phones to new vehicle generation makes proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) a distinguished type fuel cells, expected to play a key role in the future energy system. Wang and Liu [1] presented systematic experimental data on the performance of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell. Their experiments concentrated on the effects of cell temperature, gas humidification, cell operating pressure and reactant gas flow rate. Jordan et al [2] presented the gas diffusion layer parameters effects on polymer electrolyte fuel cell performances Sridhar and his colleagues [3] studied PEMFCs performance by two methods of humidifying. Many parameters influence the performance of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells such as operating pressure and temperature so that it is important studies these effects to improve fuel cells’ performance. The numerical model of the present paper is validated using the available experimental data
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