Impact of Separator Thickness on Temperature Distribution in Single Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cell Based on 1D Heat Transfer

Abstract

It is known from the New Energy and Industry Technology Development Organization (NEDO) roam map Japan, 2017 that the polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) power generation system is required to operate at 100˚C for application of mobility usage from 2020 to 2025. This study aims to clarify the effect of separator thickness on the distribution of the temperature of reaction surface (T react ) at the initial temperature of cell (T ini ) with flow rate, relative humidity (RH) of supply gases as well as RH of air surrounding cell of PEFC.The distribution of T react is estimated by means of the heat transfer model considering the H 2 O vapor transfer proposed by the authors. The relationship between the standard deviation of T react -T ini and total voltage obtained in the experiment is also investigated. We can know the effect of the flow rate of supply gas as well as RH of air surrounding cell of PEFC on the distribution of T react -T ini is not significant. It is observed the wider distribution of T react -T ini provides the reduction in power generation performance irrespective of separator thickness. In the case of separator thickness of 1.0 mm, the standard deviation of T react -T ini has smaller distribution range and the total voltage shows a larger variation compared to the other cases.

Impact of Separator Thickness on Relationship between Temperature Distribution and Mass & Current Density Distribution in Single Cell of HT-PEFC

“…Since we assume the excess amount of gas which is larger than s.r. = 1.0 as the inlet gas flow rate, the generated heat is accumulated along with the gas flow through the gas channel [42]. Therefore, the temperature on the interface between PEM and catalyst layer at the cathode side rises from the inlet of cell to the outlet of cell.…”