Enhanced Water Removal from PEM Fuel Cells Using Acoustic Pressure Waves

Mortazavi, Mehdi; Santamaria, Anthony D.; Benner, Jingru; Chauhan, Vedang

doi:10.1149/2.0211907jes

Cited by 28 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…Schafer et al managed to superimpose an acoustic wave to excite the liquid surface. Using acoustic pressure waves superimposed on the air flow, Mortazavi et al investigated the water removal behavior from GDL surfaces. Transparent channel and a CCD camera were adopted to observe the water transport in their study.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water transport in the gas diffusion layer of proton exchange membrane fuel cell under vibration conditions

Jiao

Niu

et al. 2020

Int J Energy Res

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Summary Fuel cell vehicles face complicated road conditions, which may impact on the output performance of fuel cell stacks. In the present study, the water transport in the gas diffusion layer (GDL) of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) under vibration conditions are investigated. A stochastic method is employed to reconstruct the 3‐D GDL with experimentally validated varying porosities. The volume of fluid (VOF) method is adopted to investigate the two‐phase problems. Sinusoidal vibration source terms are superposed, which can vary with required amplitudes and directions. Over time, the water transport process takes three steps: water intrusion, water accumulation, and water removal. The water intrusion tends to start from the sides of the GDL, then spreads into the central area. Compared with the no‐vibration case, the water saturations are higher in both the vertical and horizontal vibration cases. The vibration will enhance the water transport through GDL layers. As such, the higher the vibration amplitude and frequency, the larger the water saturation. Accordingly, the water saturation of the GDL vary sinusoidally over time. The water breakthrough paths are identified and compared during the water removal processes. Vibration in the horizontal direction is much easier to promote the water transport inside a layer compared with vibration in the vertical direction. More substantial water saturation in the GDL layers will restrict the gas transfer paths. Consequently, less oxygen will participate in the reaction, which will further impact on the fuel cell performance.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water transport in the gas diffusion layer of proton exchange membrane fuel cell under vibration conditions

Jiao

Niu

et al. 2020

Int J Energy Res

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“…Researchers 69,70 have shown that pore‐size distribution affects mass transport more than the total porosity. It was found that increasing the MPL volume in the GDL decreased the fuel cell overall performance loss due to mass transport limitations 10 . GDL with non‐uniformly dispersed porosity has been proposed to improve fuel cell overall performance through supporting water removal and access of gases 71,72 .…”

Section: Basic Pemfc Operationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It was found that increasing the MPL volume in the GDL decreased the fuel cell overall performance loss due to mass transport limitations. 10 GDL with nonuniformly dispersed porosity has been proposed to improve fuel cell overall performance through supporting water removal and access of gases. 71,72 Han et al 29 produced an adequate GDL porosity and pore size with the aid of appreciably filling the carbon paper GDL with carbon/PTFE filler to obtain an average pore diameter which was capable of mitigating the flooding of the fuel gas.…”

Section: Gdl Pore Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Schafer et al 9 on the other hand, superimposed an acoustic wave to excite the liquid surface. In another study, Mortazavi et al 10 studied the water removal behavior through the GDL surface. While various visualization investigations have focused on cathode‐side channel flooding, their results have been restricted to a subjective depiction of flow designs under a given arrangement of operating conditions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A review of gas diffusion layer properties and water management in proton exchange membrane fuel cell system

2020

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Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) can intensely lessen the emissions from the energy sector through environmentally friendly attributes. This evaluation paper summarizes the key additives of the PEMFC which are associated with water formation and delivery inside the cell. The gas diffusion layer (GDL) plays a key role in reactant gas diffusion and water control in proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells. This paper also reviews updated literature regarding various hydrophobic and hydrophilic materials used for the improvement of the GDL and overall PEMFC performance. A style of carbon and steel-based microporous substrates (MPS) and microporous layer (MPL) and their impact in GDL overall performance are provided. Materials' properties that affect the performance of the MPL consisting of pore sizes, porosity, and permeability are additionally reviewed. Visualization of water in the flow channel and techniques to understand the mechanism of flow is reported. The failure modes related to the membrane electrode assembly (MEA) and typical PEMFC degradation are discussed. Prospects for development and addressing the water management and degradation of PEMFC through the exploration of further experimental and numerical studies are presented. Highlights • Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) can be a good candidate for several applications • The material property of the GDL influences the overall fuel performance • Water transport if not properly managed can cause poor performance and failure of the fuel cell • There is need to understand how the fuel cell failure is related to the

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“…In PEMFC, the water dispensing method requires gas pressure to force the water droplets to move along the microchannel. Other innovative methods of water removal are, e.g., flexural wave [2], acoustic pressure wave [3], and vibrationalacoustical methods [4]. The average size of the droplet is less than 4 μL [5][6][7][8][9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Computational Modelling of Droplet Dynamics Behaviour in Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells: A Review

Yong

Ganesan

Kazi

et al. 2019

J. Electrochem. Sci. Technol

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Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC) is one of the leading advanced energy conversion technology for the use in transport. It generates water droplets through the catalytic processes and dispenses the water through the gas-flowed microchannels. The droplets in the dispensing microchannel experience g-forces from different directions during the operation in transport. Therefore, this paper reviews the computational modelling topics of droplet dynamics behaviour specifically for three categories, i.e. (i) the droplet sliding down a surface, (ii) the droplet moving in a gas-flowed microchannel, and (iii) the droplet jumping upon coalescence on superhydrophobic surface; in particular for the parameters like hydrophobicity surfaces, droplet sizes, numerical methods, channel sizes, wall conditions, popular references and boundary conditions.

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Enhanced Water Removal from PEM Fuel Cells Using Acoustic Pressure Waves

Cited by 28 publications

References 63 publications

Water transport in the gas diffusion layer of proton exchange membrane fuel cell under vibration conditions

Water transport in the gas diffusion layer of proton exchange membrane fuel cell under vibration conditions

A review of gas diffusion layer properties and water management in proton exchange membrane fuel cell system

Computational Modelling of Droplet Dynamics Behaviour in Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells: A Review

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