Effects of flow field design on the performance of a PEM fuel cell with metal foam as the flow distributor

Pulsed Laser Deposition of Platinum Nanoparticles as a Catalyst for High-Performance PEM Fuel Cells

“…In addition, further reduction of Pt loading could be attained using an alloy of Pt [36,37], and the advantage offered by PLD should still hold for this case. Furthermore, the flow distributors used in this experiment were not optimised for this particular fuel cell active area yet, and thinner PEM can be used to reduce the proton transport resistance [33,34]. With the combination of pulsed laser deposition of Pt alloy, optimal carbon support, and optimal flow distributor and PEM, higher current density and power density could be achieved.…”

“…The MEA with an active area of 3 cm × 3 cm was made by hot-pressing a GDL loaded with PLD Pt catalyst for the cathode, a Nafion XL membrane coated with E-TEK Pt/C on one side with a Pt loading of 200 µg·cm −2 , and an unloaded GDL at 1150 kg and 135 • C for 120 s. A PEM fuel cell was assembled by sandwiching the MEA with two flow-field plates which use metal foams coated with PTFE as flow distributors [33,34]. A standard fuel cell testing system was used for measuring the J-V curves of the PEM fuel cells [33]. In all fuel cell tests, pure H 2 and O 2 were used as fuel and oxidant, respectively, and they were both humidified to 100% relative humidity by using inline humidifers.…”

Application of metal foams to high temperature PEM fuel cells

“…Compare with traditional graphite flow plates, there are several advantages for using metal foams, including increasing gas diffusion, reducing weight, and decreasing contact resistance, etc. Previous works [1,24] did show metal foam LT-PEMFC had better performance than fuel cells with traditional graphite flow plates. However, in LT-PEMFC, metal foams needs hydrophobic coatings to prevent water flooding.…”

“…Recently, nitride-coated metal foams have been successfully used as the flow field for LT-PEMFC [1,24]. Compare with traditional graphite flow plates, there are several advantages for using metal foams, including increasing gas diffusion, reducing weight, and decreasing contact resistance, etc.…”

Representative model and flow characteristics of open pore cellular foam and potential use in proton exchange membrane fuel cells

“…As an alternative to conventional flow plates, Open Pore Cellular Foam (OPCF) materials have recently been used as a flow distributor in flow fields [9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. OPCF, shown in Figure 1 (a), is a relatively new class of cellular material with the ability to be manufactured with tailored mechanical, thermal and electrical properties by varying the material's relative density and cell morphology [16].…”