Proton exchange membrane fuel cells offer promising clean energy solutions for various applications. However, their performance relies heavily on the properties of the microporous layer, which plays a crucial role in transporting and distributing the components in the fuel cell. To date, the potential for optimising the microporous layer material structural parameters to enhance the fuel cell performance remains largely unexplored. This study aims to fill this research gap by conducting a comprehensive investigation of the effects of different microporous layer material structural parameters on the heat and mass transfer in the membrane electrode assembly. MATLAB was used for optimising the performance of the fuel cell components. The results show that increasing the microporous layer thickness from 5 to 50 μm significantly affects the species transport, leading to a substantial reduction in the molar fraction of H₂ and O₂ at the electrochemical reaction sites. Furthermore, the distribution of the liquid water saturation inside the fuel cell is influenced by the porosity and permeability of the microporous layer. By increasing the porosity from 0.3 to 0.6, the liquid water saturation at the interface of the catalyst layer and microporous layer decreases by 0.52 % and 1.12 % at output voltages of 0.5 V and 0.7 V, respectively. This reduction enhances the efficiency of internal water transport. Moreover, reducing the permeability of the microporous layer from 2 × 10^-12 to 1 × 10^-13 at 0.5 V and 0.7 V leads to an increase in liquid water saturation at the interface of the proton exchange membrane and the catalyst layer by 1.49 % and 0.74 %, respectively, causing hindrance to the transport of internal liquid water. This study provides valuable insights into the interplay between the properties of the microporous layer material properties and heat and mass transfer characteristics in proton exchange membrane fuel cell.

This paper comprehensively investigates the purge mechanism of proton exchange membrane fuel cells during the shutdown process, which qualitatively examines the effect of purge parameters (including current density, stoichiometric ratio, and relative humidity) on water content variation, and further quantitatively investigates the remaining water content post-purge. In contrast to previous studies, this paper offers a novel perspective on analyzing the purge process and conducts a thorough examination of residual water content. This study presents a transient, isothermal, two-phase flow model for proton exchange membrane fuel cells, which is subsequently validated experimentally. Results indicate that the significance of purge parameters follows the descending order: stoichiometric ratio, relative humidity, and current density. During the purge, the stoichiometric ratio should be rapidly increased to above 9. Each incremental rise in the stoichiometric ratio from 6 to 14 leads to a respective reduction in residual membrane water content after purge of 2.19 %, 1.57 %, 1.18 %, 0.93 %, 0.76 %, 0.63 %, 0.53 %, and 0.46 %. Similarly, it is recommended to swiftly decrease relative humidity to below 40 %. Elevating the purge current density from 20 to 200 mA/cm2 decreases the time required to completely remove liquid water from 20.24 s to 6.59 s. Hence, employing a higher current density at the onset of the purge facilitates quicker removal of liquid water, albeit resulting in an increase in residual membrane water content post-purge, from 3.17 to 3.70. In summary, optimizing the purge strategy requires adjusting purge current densities according to the specific purge stage.