• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.613-620
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• 2021

A flow channel shape of PEMFC has an influence on the internal flow uniformity. If the reactant distribution in a flow path is not uniform during operation, both catalyst deactivation and mechanical damage of membrane could occur resulting in decreasing the membrane electrode assembly (MEA) durability. Numerous studies concerning flow design have been conducted to make smooth supply and uniform distribution of reactants in fuel cells. The baffle of flow path could improve fuel cell performance through the forced convection effect. A sub-channel, as an additional air flow path, could increase the reactant concentration and reduce the mass transfer loss via a smooth water discharge. In this study, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was used to analyze the effect of blocks and sub-channels on the current density and oxygen concentration of the fuel cell. As a result, the limit current density and oxygen concentration at a rear block increased when using blocks and sub-channels in a flow channel. In particular, the current density increased significantly when the sub-channel was placed between two blocks. Also, the sub-channel position was optimized by analyzing the oxygen concentration, and the oxygen concentration was recovered at a rear block in the fuel cell.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.8 no.2 s.23
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• pp.15-27
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• 2004

The purpose of this paper is to improve the performance of Polymer electrolyte fuel cell(PEMFC) by studying the channel dimension of bipolar plates using commercial CFD program 'Fluent'. Simulations are done ranging from 0.5 to 3.0mm for different size in order to find the channel size which shoves the highst hydrogen consumption. The results showed that the smaller channel width, land width, channel depth, the higher hydrogen consumption in anode. When channel width is increased, the pressure drop in channel is decreased because total channel length Is decreased, and when land width is increased, the net hydrogen consumption is decreased because hydrogen is diffused under the land width. It is also found that the influence of hydrogen consumption is larger at different channel width than it at different land width. The change of hydrogen consumption with different channel depth isn't as large as it with different channel width, but channel depth has to be small as can as it does because it has influence on the volume of bipolar plates. however the hydrogen utilization among the channel sizes more than 1.0mm which can be machined in reality is the most at channel width 1.0, land width 1.0, channel depth 0.5mm and considered as optimum channel size. The fuel cell combined with 2cm${\times}$2cm diagonal or serpentine type flow field and MEA(Membrane Electrode Assembly) is tested using 100W PEMFC test station to confirm that the channel size studied in simulation. The results showed that diagonal and serpentine flow field have similarly high OCV and current density of diagonal (low field is higher($2-40mA/m^2$) than that of serpentine flow field under 0.6 voltage, but the current density of serpentine type has higher performance($5-10mA/m^2$) than that of diagonal flow field under 0.7-0.8 voltage.