Wettability and capillary behavior of fibrous gas diffusion media for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells

Numerical Simulation of Non-Uniform Gas Diffusion Layer Porosity Effect on Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell Performance

Gas diffusion layers are essential components of proton exchange membrane fuel cell since the reactants should pass through these layers. Mass transport in these layers is highly dependent on porosity. Many of simulations have assumed, for simplicity, the porosity of GDL is constant, but in practice, there is a considerable variation in porosity along gas diffusion layers. In the present study ...

Stochastic Modeling and Direct Simulation of the Diffusion Media for Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells

Using a Quasi-Potential Transformation for Modeling Diffusion Media in Polymer-Electrolyte Fuel Cells

In this paper, a quasi-potential approach along with conformal mapping is used to model the diffusion media of a polymer-electrolyte fuel cell. This method provides a series solution that is grid independent and only requires integration along a single boundary to solve the problem. The approach accounts for nonisothermal phenomena, two-phase flow, correct placement of the electronic potential ...

Numerical analysis of reactant transport in the novel tubular polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells

In present work, numerical analysis of three novel PEM fuel cells with tubular geometry was conducted. Tree different cross section was considered for PEM, namely: circular, square and triangular. Similar boundary and operational conditions is applied for all the geometries. At first, the obtained polarization curve for basic architecture fuel cells was validated with experimental data and then...

Drops, Slugs, and Flooding in Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells

The process of flooding has been examined with a single-channel fuel cell that permits direct observation of liquid water motion and local current density. As product water flows through the largest pores in the hydrophobic GDL, drops detach from the surface, aggregate, and form slugs. Flooding in polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells occurs when liquid water slugs accumulate in the gas...