A parametric investigation of two phase flow in the cathode side of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amirkabir university of Technology

2 Department of mechanical engineering, Amirkabir university of tecnology

3 Department of Mechanical Engineering , Amirkabir university of technology

4 Department of mechanical engineering, Amirkabir university of technology

Abstract

In this study, performance of Polymer Electrolyte Membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) was investigated using a 3D transient and two-phase simulation of the cathode side of PEMFC. The governing equations were discretized by finite volume method and solved numerically using an in-house FORTRAN code. A parametric study on the liquid water formation in porous medium and the performance of the PEMFC was conducted. Among effective parameters on the performance of PEMFC, porosity and permeability of porous media, contact angle between water and solid surface, were studied. The results showed that the reduction of porosity, permeability and contact angle increase the content of liquid water in porous media. Permeability and contact angle are the most effective ones in such a way that reduction of permeability and contact angle from to and from 140 to 91 degree, respectively, reduce the average of the liquid water volume fraction (s) in catalyst layer from 0.04 to 0.16 (by factor of 3) and from 0.058 to 0.15 (59%). For the operating condition studied here, a correlation is developed for prediction of the s based on a parameter which is solely function of propreties of the porous media.

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