An experimental investigation of temperature distribution and flooding phenomena of cathode flow fields in a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell

Abstract

Water management is considered to be one of the main issues to be addressed for the performance improvement of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells. In this paper, to investigate cathode flooding and its relationship with temperature distribution, an experimental study was carried out on cathode sides of an operating single PEM fuel cell. For the direct visualization of temperature fields and water transport in cathode flow channels, a transparent cell was designed and manufactured using quartz window. Liquid water transport and distribution in the flow channels were investigated experimentally. Also, the visualization of temperature distributions in the cathode channels was made by using an IR (infra-red) camera. Results indicate that the temperature rise near the exit of cathode flow channels was found. It is expected that this study can effectively contribute to get the detailed data on water transport linked with thermal management during the operation of a PEM fuel cell.

Simultaneous thermal and visual imaging of liquid water of the PEM fuel cell flow channels

“…They reported that the enthalpy of condensation is the cause for an elevated temperature in areas where liquid water is observed. Kim et al [20] performed a similar investigation to that of Hakenjos et al [19] and reached to the same conclusion, i.e. the enthalpy of condensation is the cause for the high temperatures in the areas where liquid water is observed.…”

Effect of reactant gas flow orientation on the current and temperature distribution in self-heating polymer electrolyte fuel cells

“…It is questionable if robust temperature control is always implemented effectively in reported studies, and in any case, there is likely to be a distribution of current density and temperature within cells such that true isothermal operation is exceedingly difficult to achieve. In practice, for technological systems, fuel cell temperature will vary across the polarisation curve range [1][2][3][4] when exposed to dynamic operation and during start-up [5]. Temperature will be heterogeneously distributed across cells and throughout stacks and is a complex function of reactant flow [6], current density distribution [7,8], flow-field design [9,10], cooling mechanism [11,12], etc.…”