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http://dx.doi.org/10.7316/KHNES.2021.32.4.245

A Study on Oxygen Diffusion Characteristics According to Changes in Flow Field Shape of Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell Metallic Bipolar Plate for Building  

PARK, DONGHWAN (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Yonsei University Graduate School)
SOHN, YOUNG-JUN (Fuel Cell Research Center, Korea Institute of Energy Research)
CHOI, YOON-YOUNG (Fuel Cell Research Center, Korea Institute of Energy Research)
KIM, MINJIN (Fuel Cell Research Center, Korea Institute of Energy Research)
HONG, JONGSUP (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Yonsei University Graduate School)
Publication Information
Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society / v.32, no.4, 2021 , pp. 245-255 More about this Journal
Abstract
Various studies about metallic bipolar plates have been conducted to improve fuel cell performance through flow field design optimization. These research works have been mainly focused on fuel cells for vehicle, but not fuel cells for building. In order to reduce the price and volume of fuel cell stacks for building, it is necessary to apply a metallic flow field, In this study, for a metallic flow field applied to a fuel cell for building, the effect of a change in the flow field shape on the performance of a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell was confirmed using a model and experiments with a down-sizing single cell. As a result, the flow field using a metal foam outperforms the channel type flow field because it has higher internal differential pressure and higher reactants velocity in gas diffusion layer, resulting in higher water removal and higher oxygen concentration in the catalyst layer than the channel type flow field. This study is expected to contribute to providing basic data for selecting the optimal flow field for the full stack of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells for buildings.
Keywords
Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell; Metallic bipolar plate; Flow field design; Computational fluid dynamics; Experiment;
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