Numerical study of two-phase flow patterns in the gas channel of PEM fuel cells with tapered flow field design

2014 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 2261-2273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erasmo Mancusi ◽  
Éliton Fontana ◽  
Antônio Augusto Ulson de Souza ◽  
Selene M.A. Guelli Ulson de Souza
Author(s):  
Sujin Yeom ◽  
Seung S. Lee ◽  
Sang Yong Lee

This paper presents a micro-fluidic device which generates micro-bubbles, ranging from 70μm to 160μm in diameter, and two-phase flow characteristics in the device were tested. The device is composed of three sub-channels: a centered gas channel (10μm×50μm) and two liquid channels (both with 85μm×50μm) on each side of the gas channel. Micro-bubbles are generated by co-flow of gas and liquid at the exit of the gas channel when the drag force becomes larger than the surface tension force as bubbles grow. Methanol and a gas mixture of CO2 and N2 were used as the working fluid. Since the flow rate of gas was very small, the gas momentum effect was considered negligible. Thus, in the present case, the controlling parameters were the liquid superficial velocity and the inlet pressure of the gas. A high speed camera was used to record two-phase flow patterns and micro-bubbles of the device. To confine the ranges of the micro-bubbles generation, two-phase flow patterns in the device is observed at first. Four different flow patterns were observed: annular, annular-slug, slug, and bubbly flow. In bubbly flows, uniform-sized micro-bubbles were generated, and the operating ranges of the liquid superficial velocity and the gas pressure were below 0.132 m/s and 0.7 bar, respectively. Diameters of the micro-bubbles appeared smaller with the higher superficial liquid velocity and/or with a lower gas pressure. Experimental results showed that, with the gas pressure lower than a certain level, the sizes of micro-bubbles were almost insensitive to the gas pressure. In such a ranges, the micro-bubble diameters could be estimated from a drag coefficient correlation, CDw = 31330/Re3, which is different from the correlations for macro-channels due to a larger wall effect with the micro-channels. In the latter part of the paper, as a potential of application of the micro-bubble generator to gas analysis, dissolution behavior of the gas components into the liquid flow was examined. The result shows that the micro-bubble generator can be adopted as a component of miniaturized gas analyzers if a proper improvement could be made in controlling the bubble sizes effectively.


2017 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 1101-1110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lie Wei ◽  
Liang-Ming Pan ◽  
Yan-Ming Zhao ◽  
Quan-Yao Ren ◽  
Wen-Zhi Zhang

2015 ◽  
Vol 38 (7) ◽  
pp. 1229-1234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Selene M. A. Guelli Ulson de Souza ◽  
Erasmo Mancusi ◽  
Éliton Fontana ◽  
Antônio Augusto Ulson de Souza

Author(s):  
Nicholas Siefert ◽  
Colin O’Shea ◽  
Shawn Litster

Water management is a critical issue in the development of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells with robust operation. Liquid water can accumulate and flood the gas delivery microchannels and the porous electrodes within PEM fuel cells and deteriorate performance. Since the liquid distribution fluctuates in time for two-phase flow, the rate of oxygen transport to the cathode catalyst layer also fluctuates, resulting in unstable power density and efficiency. In previous research into measuring the voltage loss and voltage fluctuation due to two-phase flow instabilities in the cathode channels of PEM fuel cells, we investigated the effect of the number of parallel channels covering the active area by studying flow fields with varying numbers of parallel channels (4 to 25) while keeping the active area constant at 5 cm2. The resulting voltage loss and fluctuation measurements were expressed as functions of two non-dimensional parameters: channel plurality and the air flow stoichiometric ratio. Channel plurality is a flow field design parameter that defines the number of channels per unit of active area, which is non-dimensionalized by the cross-sectional area of the channels. In this paper, we expand upon our prior studies by studying cathode flow field designs of varying active area, from 5 cm2 to 25 cm2, with a constant number of 25 channels. By increasing the active area with a constant number of channels, we are reducing the channel plurality value. The new results are mapped back to the non-dimensional parameters to extract empirical scaling rules for voltage loss and fluctuation. Furthermore, we compare this data to our prior work with constant active area and identify the significance of the fuel cell size in the scaling relationships. Finally, a refined scaling is presented for generalizing the results for fuel cells having different active area and number of channels.


Author(s):  
Wei Du ◽  
Lifeng Zhang ◽  
Xiaotao T Bi ◽  
David Wilkinson ◽  
Jürgen Stumper ◽  
...  

Effective water management is one of the key strategies for improving the performance and durability of PEM fuel cells. Phenomena such as membrane dehydration, catalyst layer flooding and two-phase flow in flow-channels are all determined by the distribution and movement of water during cell operation. In this study, gas-liquid flow in mini-channels relevant to fuel cells was numerically studied using a CFD two-phase flow model in combination with a volume of fluid (VOF) method. The results show that the surface wettability of the channel wall can greatly affect the flow pattern, especially when the channel walls and the gas diffusion layer (GDL) surface possess different contact angles. When the channel walls are more hydrophobic, more water is accumulated on the GDL. An increase in the surface tension results in a slight increase of slug frequency and a slight decrease in slug length. The onset of slugging along the channel is determined by the gas-liquid mixture velocity, gas-to-liquid flow ratio and the way water is introduced into the gas flow channel. Furthermore, the calculated pressure drop fluctuations show a strong dependence on the channel liquid content and the slug length.


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