Simultaneous Simulation of Gas Diffusion Layer and Air Channel in a Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell: Pore-Scale Modeling of Water Flooding

Document Type : Research Article

Author

Abstract

In this study, Lattice Boltzmann method is used to investigate liquid water transport in a carbon paper gas diffusion layer and gas channel of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells. The effects of gas diffusion layer wettability on the removal process and liquid water distribution are investigated. In addition, liquid water dynamic behaviors and liquid water saturation within the gas diffusion layer in two case of steady and transient are explored. This study focuses on the effects of surface wettability on the number of effective clusters, merging of clusters, and the required time for reaching the steady-state water distribution. The results show that the wettability of surface affects on the saturation of liquid water in the gas diffusion layer and in  100lu<Y<160lu, this effect is noticeable. The steady-  water distribution is observed at time step of 1590000 and 1500000 (lattice unit) for the contact angles of 115° and 145°, respectively. Thus the simulation results show that by increasing the contact angle of fibers in gas diffusion layer, the required time to obtain a steady state water distribution is reduced. Therefore, if the solid surface becomes more hydrophobic, water management will be improved in the gas diffusion layer.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

[1]  Molaeimanesh, G. and M. H. Akbari (2014). "Water droplet dynamic behavior during removal from a proton exchange membrane fuel cell gas diffusion layer by Lattice-Boltzmann method." Korean journal of chemical engineering 31(4): 598-610.
[2] O'hayre, R., et al. (2016). Fuel cell fundamentals, John Wiley & Sons.
[3]  Wang, C.-Y. (2004). "Fundamental models for fuel cell engineering." Chemical reviews 104(10): 4727- 4766.
[4] Larminie, J., et al. (2003). Fuel cell systems explained, J. Wiley Chichester, UK.
[5]  Owejan, J. P., et al. (2009). "Water management studies in PEM fuel cells, Part I: Fuel cell design and in situ water distributions." International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 34(8): 3436-3444.
[6]  Chen, L., et al. (2010). "Liquid water dynamic behaviors in the GDL and GC of PEMFCs using lattice Boltzmann method." Frontiers in Heat and Mass Transfer (FHMT) 1(2).
[7]  Chen, L., et al. (2012). "Numerical investigation of liquid water transport and distribution in porous gas diffusion layer of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell using lattice Boltzmann method." Russian journal of electrochemistry 48(7): 712-726.
[8] Li, H., et al. (2008). "A review of water flooding issues in the proton exchange membrane fuel cell." Journal of Power Sources 178(1): 103-117.
[9]  Lenormand, R., et al. (1988). "Numerical models and experiments on immiscible displacements in porous media." Journal of fluid mechanics 189: 165-187..
[10]  Mukherjee, P. P., et al. (2009). "Mesoscopic modeling of two-phase behavior and flooding phenomena in polymer electrolyte fuel cells." Electrochimica Acta 54(27): 6861-6875.
[11]   Hao, L. and P. Cheng (2010). "Lattice Boltzmann simulations of water transport in gas diffusion layer of a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell." Journal of Power Sources 195(12): 3870-3881.
[12]   Chen, L., et al. (2012). "Pore-scale flow and mass transport in gas diffusion layer of proton exchange membrane fuel cell with interdigitated flow fields." International Journal of Thermal Sciences 51: 132- 144.
[13]   Lee, K.-J., et al. (2009). "Pore-network analysis of two-phase water transport in gas diffusion layers of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells." Electrochimica Acta 54(4): 1166-1176..
[14]  Ziegler, C. and D. Gerteisen (2009). "Validity of two- phase polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell models with respect to the gas diffusion layer." Journal of Power Sources 188(1): 184-191.
[15]  Yang, X., et al. (2004). "Visualization of liquid water transport in a PEFC." Electrochemical and Solid-State Letters 7(11): A408-A411.
[16]  Zhang, F., et al. (2006). "Liquid water removal from a polymer electrolyte fuel cell." Journal of the Electrochemical Society 153(2): A225-A232.
[17]     Chen, S. and G. D. Doolen (1998). "Lattice Boltzmann method for fluid flows." Annual review of fluid mechanics 30(1): 329-364.
[18]     Chen, S. and G. D. Doolen (1998). "Lattice Boltzmann method for fluid flows." Annual review of fluid mechanics 30(1): 329-364.
[19] Mukherjee, P. P., et al. (2009). "Mesoscopic modeling of two-phase behavior and flooding phenomena in polymer electrolyte fuel cells." Electrochimica Acta 54(27): 6861-6875.
[20] Inamuro, T., et al. (2004). "A lattice Boltzmann method for incompressible two-phase flows with large density differences." Journal of Computational physics 198(2): 628-644.
[21] Daino, M. M. and S. G. Kandlikar (2012). "3D phase- differentiated GDL microstructure generation with binder and PTFE distributions." International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 37(6): 5180-5189..
[22] Shan, X. and H. Chen (1993). "Lattice Boltzmann model for simulating flows with multiple phases and components." Physical Review E 47(3): 1815.
[23] Huang, H., et al. (2007). "Proposed approximation for contact angles in Shan-and-Chen-type multicomponent multiphase lattice Boltzmann models." Physical Review E 76(6): 066701.
[24] Dong, B., et al. (2010). "Simulation of the influence of surface wettability on viscous fingering phenomenon in porous media." Journal of Bionic Engineering 7(3): 267-275..
[25] Huang, H., et al. (2011). "Evaluation of three lattice Boltzmann models for multiphase flows in porous media." Computers & Mathematics with Applications 61(12): 3606-3617..
[26] Jeon, D. H. and H. Kim (2015). "Effect of compression on water transport in gas diffusion layer of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell using lattice Boltzmann method." Journal of Power Sources 294: 393-405.
[27] Zou, Q. and X. He (1997). "On pressure and velocity boundary conditions for the lattice Boltzmann BGK model." Physics of fluids 9(6): 1591-1598.
[28] Sinha, P. K., et al. (2007). "Impact of GDL structure and wettability on water management in polymer electrolyte fuel cells." Journal of Materials Chemistry 17(30): 3089-3103.
[29] Pan, C., et al. (2004). "Lattice‐Boltzmann simulation of two‐phase flow in porous media." Water Resources Research 40(1).
[30]  Park, J. and X. Li (2008). "Multi-phase micro-scale flow simulation in the electrodes of a PEM fuel cell by lattice Boltzmann method." Journal of Power Sources 178(1): 248-257.
[31]  Molaeimanesh, G. and M. Akbari (2014). "Impact of PTFE distribution on the removal of liquid water from a PEMFC electrode by lattice Boltzmann method." International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 39(16): 8401-8409.
[32]  Dullien, F. A. (2012). Porous media: fluid transport and pore structure, Academic press.
[33] Gao, Y. (2012). Simulate fluid transport in gas diffusion layers of PEM Fuel Cells using lattice Boltzmann method and X-ray computed tomography, Citeseer.
[34] Kim, K. N., et al. (2015). "Lattice Boltzmann simulation of liquid water transport in microporous and gas diffusion layers of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells." Journal of Power Sources 278: 703-717.
Amirkabir Journal of Mechanical Engineering
Volume 51, Issue 6
January and February 2020
Pages 1289-1304

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics