scholarly journals Research on Liquid Water Distribution in PEMFC Cathode Porous Media

Author(s):  
Hongjian Liu ◽  
Processes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 757
Author(s):  
Tianyi Su ◽  
Wenqing Zhang ◽  
Zhijun Zhang ◽  
Xiaowei Wang ◽  
Shiwei Zhang

A 2D axi-symmetric theoretical model of dielectric porous media in intermittent microwave (IMW) thermal process was developed, and the electromagnetic energy, multiphase transport, phase change, large deformation, and glass transition were taken into consideration. From the simulation results, the mass was mainly carried by the liquid water, and the heat was mainly carried by liquid water and solid. The diffusion was the dominant mechanism of the mass transport during the whole process, whereas for the heat transport, the convection dominated the heat transport near the surface areas during the heating stage. The von Mises stress reached local maxima at different locations at different stages, and all were lower than the fracture stress. A material treated by a longer intermittent cycle length with the same pulse ratio (PR) tended to trigger the phenomena of overheat and fracture due to the more intense fluctuation of moisture content, temperature, deformation, and von Mises stress. The model can be extended to simulate the intermittent radio frequency (IRF) process on the basis of which one can select a suitable energy source for a specific process.


Author(s):  
Pradyumna Challa ◽  
James Hinebaugh ◽  
A. Bazylak

In this paper, through-plane liquid water distribution is analyzed for two polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) gas diffusion layers (GDLs). The experiments were conducted in an ex situ flow field apparatus with 1 mm square channels at two distinct flow rates to mimic water production rates of 0.2 and 1.5 A/cm2 in a PEMFC. Synchrotron radiography, which involves high intensity monochromatic X-ray beams, was used to obtain images with a spatial and temporal resolution of 20–25 μm and 0.9 s, respectively. Freudenberg H2315 I6 exhibited significantly higher amounts of water than Toray TGP-H-090 at the instance of breakthrough, where breakthrough describes the event in which liquid water reaches the flow fields. While Freudenberg H2315 I6 exhibited a significant overall decrease in liquid water content throughout the GDL shortly after breakthrough, Toray TGP-H-090 appeared to retain breakthrough water-levels post-breakthrough. It was also observed that the amount of liquid water content in Toray TGP-H-090 (10%.wt PTFE) decreased significantly when the liquid water injection rate increased from 1 μL/min to 8 μL/min.


Author(s):  
Yuichiro Tabuchi ◽  
Takeshi Shiomi ◽  
Osamu Aoki ◽  
Norio Kubo ◽  
Kazuhiko Shinohara

Heat and water transport in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) has considerable impacts on cell performance under high current density which is desired in PEMFC for automobiles. In this study, the impact of rib/channel, heat and water transport on cell performance under high current density was investigated by experimental evaluation of liquid water distribution and numerical validation. Liquid water distribution between rib and channel is evaluated by Neutron Radiography. In order to neglect the effect of liquid water in channel and the distribution of oxygen and hydrogen concentration distribution along with channel length, the differential cell was used in this study. Experimental results show that liquid water under channel was dramatically changed with Rib/Channel width. From numerical study, it is found that the change of liquid water distribution was strongly affected by temperature distribution between rib and channel. In addition, not only heat transport but also water transport through membrane also significantly affected cell performance under high current density operation. From numerical validation, it is concluded that this effect on cell performance under high current density could be due to the enhancement of back-diffusion of water through membrane.


2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 1831
Author(s):  
A. Papafotiou ◽  
C. Schütz ◽  
P. Lehmann ◽  
P. Vontobel ◽  
D. Or ◽  
...  

Infiltration and evaporation are governing processes for water exchange between soil and atmosphere. In addition to atmospheric supply or demand, infiltration and evaporation rates are controlled by the material properties of the subsurface and the interplay between capillary, viscous and gravitational forces. This is commonly modeled with semi-empirical approaches using continuum models, such as the Richards equation for unsaturated flow. However, preferential flow phenomena often occur, limiting or even entirely suspending the applicability of continuum-based models. During infiltration, unstable fingers may form in homogeneous or heterogeneous porous media. On the other hand, the evaporation process may be driven by the hydraulic coupling of materials with different hydraulic functions found in heterogeneous systems. To analyze such preferential flow processes, water distribution was monitored in infiltration and evaporation lab experiments using neutron transmission techniques. Measurements were performed in 2D and 3D, using homogeneous and heterogeneous setups. The experimental findings demonstrate the fingering effect in infiltration and how it is influenced by the presence of fine inclusions in coarse background material. During evaporation processes, the hydraulic coupling effect is found to control the evaporation rate, limiting the modeling of water balances between soil and surface based on surface information alone.


2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin Liu ◽  
Annan Zhou ◽  
Jie Li ◽  
Shijin Feng

This study presents a novel and simple morphology approach to generate two-dimensional air–water distribution in porous media considering Or and Tuller’s cavitation mechanism (published in 2002). The connectedness condition for the nonwetting phase is replaced by the Laplace equation. An algorithm is developed to detect the ruptured water spaces that are incorrectly formed in the throat by the morphology approach, but cannot exist in a real thermodynamic equilibrium system. The distributions of soil moisture, water retention curve, and air–liquid interface area at different saturations predicted by this method are in a good quantitative agreement with the experimental observations on glass beads and Ottawa sand from micro X-raycomputed tomography (microXCT). Compared to Lu et al.’s Monte Carlo lattice-gas approach (published in 2010), another computational method to generate the soil moisture distribution, the proposed approach provides better results with significantly less computational power.


Author(s):  
Jinglin He ◽  
Song-Yul Choe ◽  
Chang-Ouk Hong

The flow in gas flow channels of an operating polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell has a two-phase characteristic that includes air, water vapor and liquid water and significantly affects the water flooding, pressure distribution along the channels, and subsequently the performance of the cell and system. Presence of liquid water in channels prevents transport of the reactants to the catalysts and increases the pressure difference between the inlet and outlet of channels, which leads to high parasitic power of pumps used in air and fuel supply systems. We propose a model that enables prediction of pressure drop and liquid water distribution along channels and analysis of water flooding in an operating fuel cell. The model was developed based on a gas-liquid two-phase separated flow that considers the variations of gas pressure, mass flow rate, relative humidity, viscosity, void fraction, and density along the channels on both sides. Effects of operating parameters that include stoichoimetric ratio, relative humidity, and inlet pressure on the pressure drop and water flooding along the channels were analyzed.


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