Evaluation of cooling flow field of proton exchange membrane fuel cell based on heat transfer performance enhancement

Abstract

Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) generates a lot of heat during power generation. It is necessary to control PEMFC to operate at proper temperature through effective thermal management. CFD model of flow field plates with different structures is established; the heat transfer performance of different flow fields was analyzed by numerical simulation. The index of uniformity temperature (IUT) was introduced to further evaluate the heat transfer effect. The results showed that the parallel flow field was not suitable for cooling due to its poor performance at high coolant flow rate. The pressure difference of serpentine flow field was more than 10 times that of other flow fields, which lead to the highest cost in practical cooling application. The wave flow field with the best comprehensive cooling effect at high flow velocity, and the average temperature and IUT were 2.22% and 37.97% lower than the parallel flow field, respectively. The cooling effect of point flow field followed the second, and its average temperature and IUT were 1.65% and 29.71% lower than those of parallel flow field, respectively. In practice application, the wavy flow field showed better heat transfer performance within the required coolant flow range.

Research and Optimization of Four Serpentine-Wave Flow Fields in PEMFC

“…Despite the significant advantages, the amount of electricity produced by a single PEMFC chemical reaction is not enough to meet the needs of commercial applications such as vehicles, and this disadvantage can be well eliminated by stacking them alternately and combining them in series to form a stack structure. The role of bipolar plates (BPP) in the stack structure is significant, and the flow field structure present inside them can induce the diffusion pattern of reactants in the channel of the stack gas [7][8][9]. Numerous studies in the literature have shown that hydrothermal management is a decisive factor for cell efficiency [10][11][12][13].…”