Volume 26: Closing Carbon Cycles – A Transformation Process Involving Technology, Economy, and Society: Part I

Investigation of a Novel Cathode Flow Field of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Zhuo Zhang, Fan Bai, Pu He, Wen-Quan Tao

Abstract

A good flow field design is important to the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) performance, especially under a high current density region, which is dominated by concentration polarization. Motivated by variable cross-section channel idea, in this study, a novel flow field containing a converging-diverging (C-D) pattern is proposed. A three-dimensional multiphase model with the novel flow field is established. The results show that it outperforms the conventional straight channel and depth-variant channel. The enhanced under land cross flow in novel flow field improve the reactant transport.

Keywords flow field, converging-diverging, mass transport, performance improvement