The effect of pulsating pressure on the performance of a PEM fuel cell with a wavy cathode surface

The effect of pulsating pressure on the performance of a PEM fuel cell with a wavy cathode surface

Ashorynejad, H. (University of Guilan)
Javaherdeh, Koroush (University of Guilan)
van den Akker, H.E.A. (TU Delft ChemE/Transport Phenomena)

2016-08-24

In the context of attempts to improve the performance of Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cells with a heterogeneous porous gas diffusion layer (GDL) consisting of carbon paper, we investigated whether - and to which degree - pulsating the pressure in a single waveform cathode channel affects the flow field in the channel and the performance of the fuel cell. In this 2-D study, the GDL was modeled by a stochastic arrangement of circular solid obstacles the macroscopic transport properties of which, such as permeability and tortuosity, were numerically simulated and found to compare favorably with experimental data. The focus of this paper is on the effects of varying amplitude and frequency of the pressure pulsations on cell performance. The results obtained show that a pulsating pressure enhances the convective species transport to the reaction sites and thereby increases cell performance. We found that in a waveform channel a pulsatile pressure with an amplitude as high as 0.7 times the pressure drop over the cathode channel improves the fuel cell performance by around 7%, while the effect of pulsation frequency on output power is marginally small only.

Heterogeneous GDL
Lattice Boltzmann method
PEM fuel cell
Pore-scale modeling
Pressure pulsation
Wavy wall

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:d6661915-1ddf-4b12-ba2f-61257dcc1bb8

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2016.05.291

2018-07-30

0360-3199

International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 41 (32), 14239-14251

Accepted Author Manuscript

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2016 H. Ashorynejad, Koroush Javaherdeh, H.E.A. van den Akker