Numerical Analysis of Phenomena Transport of a Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) Fuel Cell

The investigation the PEM fuel cell under various conditions was carried out through numerical simulation. The results revealed that the mass transport resistance, the ionic resistance, and charge transfer resistance defined the current distribution in the cathode catalyst layer. The highest current distribution in the cell was determined by the highest depletion of oxygen concentration in the exit side of the channel, and the amount of the reacted and carried oxygen towards the electrode surface of the mass transfer conditions. Among all simulation conditions, the current density on the shape gas channel with the channel ratio height-width 1:1 and 2:1 was 1,061 and 1,078 A/m2, respectively, with the power density of the cell was 3,714 W/m2 and 3,776 W/m2, respectively.

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Effect of Channel Depth of PEM Fuel Cell on its Peformance

Advanced Materials Research ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.287-290.2531 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 287-290 ◽

pp. 2531-2535

Author(s):

Zheng Nan Jin ◽

Hong Sun ◽

Sheng Nan Zhao ◽

Qian Liu

Keyword(s):

Fuel Cell ◽

Proton Exchange Membrane ◽

Electrochemical Impedance ◽

Water Saturation ◽

Pem Fuel Cell ◽

Charge Transfer Resistance ◽

Proton Exchange ◽

Electrode Structure ◽

Channel Depth ◽

Transfer Resistance

The electrode structure, especially for the channel depth, plays an important role on the performance of the proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell. In this paper, the performance and electrochemical impedance of the PEM fuel cell are measured experimentally. The simulation results of mass transfer and equivalent circuit for the electrochemical impedance are used to explain the effect of the channel depth on the performance of the PEM fuel cell. These results show that when the cell temperature is lower than the gas humidification temperatures, the performance of PEM fuel cell with the channel depth of 2mm is better than that of 1mm; there is more liquid water saturation in cathode for the channel depth of 1mm than that for the channel depth of 2mm. The charge transfer resistance of the PEM fuel cell with the channel depth of 2mm is less than that with the channel depth of 1mm. These results are very helpful to optimizing structure of the PEM fuel cell.

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The Effect of Inlet Parameters on Fluid Flow and Cell Performance at Cathode of a Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell

Journal of Fuel Cell Science and Technology ◽

10.1115/1.3211097 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 7 (4) ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Utku Gulan ◽

Hasmet Turkoglu ◽

Irfan Ar

Keyword(s):

Reynolds Number ◽

Fuel Cell ◽

Power Density ◽

Current Density ◽

Proton Exchange Membrane ◽

Catalyst Layer ◽

Pem Fuel Cell ◽

Proton Exchange ◽

Exchange Membrane ◽

Oxygen Mole Fraction

In this study, the fluid flow and cell performance in cathode side of a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell were numerically analyzed. The problem domain consists of cathode gas channel, cathode gas diffusion layer, and cathode catalyst layer. The equations governing the motion of air, concentration of oxygen, and electrochemical reactions were numerically solved. A computer program was developed based on control volume method and SIMPLE algorithm. The mathematical model and program developed were tested by comparing the results of numerical simulations with the results from literature. Simulations were performed for different values of inlet Reynolds number and inlet oxygen mole fraction at different operation temperatures. Using the results of these simulations, the effects of these parameters on the flow, oxygen concentration distribution, current density and power density were analyzed. The simulations showed that the oxygen concentration in the catalyst layer increases with increasing Reynolds number and hence the current density and power density of the PEM fuel cell also increases. Analysis of the data obtained from simulations also shows that current density and power density of the PEM fuel cell increases with increasing operation temperature. It is also observed that increasing the inlet oxygen mole fraction increases the current density and power density.

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Experimental Investigation of the Effects of Catalyst Layer Composition on the Performance of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells

Advanced Energy Systems ◽

10.1115/imece2003-42817 ◽

2003 ◽

Author(s):

Jason Russell ◽

Michael W. Ellis

Keyword(s):

Fuel Cell ◽

Film Thickness ◽

Proton Exchange Membrane ◽

Catalyst Layer ◽

Pem Fuel Cell ◽

Proton Exchange ◽

Polarization Curves ◽

Nafion Film ◽

Exchange Membrane ◽

Layer Composition

The catalyst layer of a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell is a porous mixture of polymer, carbon, and platinum. The characteristics of the catalyst layer play a critical role in determining the performance of the PEM fuel cell. In this research, sample membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) are prepared using various combinations of polymer and carbon loadings while the platinum catalyst surface area is held constant. For each MEA, polarization curves are determined at common operating conditions. The polarization curves are compared to assess the effects of the catalyst layer composition. The results show that both Nafion and carbon content significantly affect MEA performance. The physical characteristics of the catalyst layer including porosity, thickness, and apparent Nafion film thickness are investigated to explain the variation in performance. The results show that for the range of compositions considered in this work, the porosity and thickness have little effect on performance but the apparent Nafion film thickness is significant.

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Modeling the effect of rib and channel dimensions on the performance of high temperature fuel cells-parallel configuration

Journal of Electrochemical Science and Engineering ◽

10.5599/jese.907 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Balaji Krishnamurthy ◽

Vikalp Jha

Keyword(s):

High Temperature ◽

Fuel Cell ◽

Proton Exchange Membrane ◽

Pem Fuel Cell ◽

Field Configuration ◽

Proton Exchange ◽

Channel Width ◽

Channel Depth ◽

Fuel Cell Performance ◽

Gas Channel

This work investigates the effect of rib width, channel width and channel depth on the performance of a high temperature proton exchange membrane (HT-PEM) fuel cell with parallel flow field configuration. Simulation results indicate that the rib width has the maximum impact on the performance of the fuel cell. The lower the rib width, the better is performance of HT-PEM fuel cell. Changing the channel width seems to have a moderate effect, while changing the channel depth seems to have very limited impact on the fuel cell performance. The effect of various rib width and channel dimensions on the pressure drop across the channel is also studied. The concentration profile of the oxygen across the cathode gas channel is modeled as a function of the channel width and depth. Modeling results are found to be in well agreement with experimental data.

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Thickness effects of anode catalyst layer on reversal tolerant performance in proton exchange membrane fuel cell

International Journal of Hydrogen Energy ◽

10.1016/j.ijhydene.2020.12.041 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Wei Chen ◽

Chao Cai ◽

Shang Li ◽

Jinting Tan ◽

Mu Pan

Keyword(s):

Fuel Cell ◽

Proton Exchange Membrane ◽

Catalyst Layer ◽

Proton Exchange ◽

Anode Catalyst ◽

Exchange Membrane

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An Artificial Intelligence Solution for Predicting Short-Term Degradation Behaviors of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app11146348 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (14) ◽

pp. 6348

Author(s):

Zijun Yang ◽

Bowen Wang ◽

Xia Sheng ◽

Yupeng Wang ◽

Qiang Ren ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Fuel Cell ◽

Proton Exchange Membrane ◽

Pem Fuel Cell ◽

Activation Function ◽

Proton Exchange ◽

Cell Performance ◽

Short Term ◽

Degradation Behaviors ◽

Hidden Layer ◽

Exchange Membrane

The dead-ended anode (DEA) and anode recirculation operations are commonly used to improve the hydrogen utilization of automotive proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells. The cell performance will decline over time due to the nitrogen crossover and liquid water accumulation in the anode. Highly efficient prediction of the short-term degradation behaviors of the PEM fuel cell has great significance. In this paper, we propose a data-driven degradation prediction method based on multivariate polynomial regression (MPR) and artificial neural network (ANN). This method first predicts the initial value of cell performance, and then the cell performance variations over time are predicted to describe the degradation behaviors of the PEM fuel cell. Two cases of degradation data, the PEM fuel cell in the DEA and anode recirculation modes, are employed to train the model and demonstrate the validation of the proposed method. The results show that the mean relative errors predicted by the proposed method are much smaller than those by only using the ANN or MPR. The predictive performance of the two-hidden-layer ANN is significantly better than that of the one-hidden-layer ANN. The performance curves predicted by using the sigmoid activation function are smoother and more realistic than that by using rectified linear unit (ReLU) activation function.

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Experimental Study on Critical Membrane Water Content of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells for Cold Storage at −50 °C

Energies ◽

10.3390/en14154520 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (15) ◽

pp. 4520

Author(s):

Xiaokang Yang ◽

Jiaqi Sun ◽

Guang Jiang ◽

Shucheng Sun ◽

Zhigang Shao ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Fuel Cells ◽

Water Content ◽

Cold Storage ◽

Proton Exchange Membrane ◽

Membrane Resistance ◽

Charge Transfer Resistance ◽

Proton Exchange ◽

Freezing Damage ◽

Transfer Resistance ◽

Exchange Membrane

Membrane water content is of vital importance to the freezing durability of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). Excessive water freezing could cause irreversible degradation to the cell components and deteriorate the cell performance and lifetime. However, there are few studies on the critical membrane water content, a threshold beyond which freezing damage occurs, for cold storage of PEMFCs. In this work, we first proposed a method for measuring membrane water content using membrane resistance extracted from measured high frequency resistance (HFR) based on the finding that the non-membrane resistance part of the measured HFR is constant within the range of membrane water content of 2.98 to 14.0. Then, freeze/thaw cycles were performed from −50 °C to 30 °C with well controlled membrane water content. After 30 cycles, cells with a membrane water content of 8.2 and 7.7 exhibited no performance degradation, while those higher than 8.2 showed significant performance decay. Electrochemical tests revealed that electrochemical surface area (ECSA) reduction and charge transfer resistance increase are the main reasons for the degradation. These results indicate that the critical membrane water content for successful cold storage at −50 °C is 8.2.

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