Abstract
Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) has become one of the most promising energy technologies at the present time. Several factors are driving the growing interest in this technology. Modeling different phenomena occurring in PEMFC plays an important role in this development and performance. The performance of a Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) depends on the characteristics of the membrane, gas diffusion layer (GDL), catalyst and operating parameters such as operating pressure, cell operation temperature, relative humidity, and mass flow rate of feed gases, channel geometries and design of the stack. Recent studies on the compilation of factors affecting durability and performance of PEMFC indicate that the performance of fuel cell strongly depends on the performance of its membrane. In this paper, a three-dimensional PEM fuel Cell model has been developed and is used to investigate the effects of geometry membrane on cell performance. The numerical results indicated that a thinner membrane corresponds to the higher current density, the hydrogen and oxygen consumption and, accordingly water production is high. Finally, the numerical results of the proposed CFD model are compared with the available experimental data and that represent good agreement.
Highlights
The proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell converts chemical energy into electricity using an electrochemical cell, and it could be used as efficient power sources, offering high power density and low environmental impact [1,2,3,4]
The model geometry is meshed with a structured grid (Fig.03) by the Comsol 5.0
Cell geometry and flow conditions for the reference case are listed in Table 1 and 2
Summary
The proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell converts chemical energy into electricity using an electrochemical cell, and it could be used as efficient power sources, offering high power density and low environmental impact [1,2,3,4]. Cost, durability, hydrogen storage and performance are the major barriers facing the full commercialization of PEMFC. Membrane is the most important component of PEMFC [17]; it is a proton conductor between two electrode anode and cathode and yet pushes the electron to flow through the external circuit to produce useful electricity. It a physical barrier between the anode and the cathode by stopping penetration of fuel from cathode side to anode side or opposite. According to previous studies by the authors [1] on the compilation of factors affecting durability and performance
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