Numerical study on PEM fuel cell performance with variation of GDL permeability and channel geometry

기체확산층의 유동투과율과 채널 형상 변화에 따른 고분자 전해질 연료전지 성능변화 수치연구

Relatively high convective flow exists in the under-rib regions of a gas diffusion layer (GDL) when serpentine flow fields are employed in a PEMFC. This under-rib convection is believed to be favorable for the performance of PEMFCs, by enabling more effective use of catalysts in the under-rib regions. From the fact that the under-rib convection in a GDL is directly proportional to the permeability of the GDL, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were performed to discover the relationship between the GDL permeability and the PEMFC performance. Single-, triple-, and quintuple-path parallel serpentine flow fields for $9\;cm^2$ active cell area were considered while changing the GDL permeability from $1{\times}10^{-12}$ to $5{\times}10^{-11}m^2$. The results showed that higher GDL permeability generally resulted in better performance of PEMFCs, but the degree of performance enhancement became smaller as the parallel path number increased. The effects of the permeability on the local variables were also discussed.