Effective Convergent-Type Flow Slab in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells

CSME 2020/02
Volume 41 No.1 : 85-90

Effective Convergent-Type Flow Slab in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells

Chin-Tsan Wang^a, Jung-Chen Wu^b, Akhil Garg ^c, Wen-Tong Chong ^d, Hwai-Chyuan Ong ^d, Bing-Xue Wu ^e and Jer-Huan Jang^e
^aDepartment of Mechanical and Electro-Mechanical Engineering, National Ilan University, I-Lan, Taiwan
^bDepartment of Materials Science and Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan
^cState Key Lab of Digital Manufacturing Equipment & Technology, School of Mechanical Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
^dDepartment of Mechanical Engineering, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
^eDepartment of mechanical engineering, Ming Chi University of Technology, New Taipei City, Taiwan

Abstract: Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cells employing modified convergent-type serpentine flow slabs (TS) were designed for the estimation of fuel cell performance enhancement in accordance with some optimization studies. Numerical simulation was used to create cell models with modified convergent serpentine flow slabs of four different channel widths such as TS28, TS36, TS44 and TS52 and performance comparison was done with a common serpentine flow slab (OS) PEM fuel cell. All the cells had the same reaction area of 25.7×24 mm and rib ratio of 51%. The TS fuel cells produced similar voltage ranging from 1-1.1 V, power density of 650 to 675 mW/cm2 and current density of 2550 to 2700 mA/cm2. The OS PEM fuel cell produced similar voltage (1.1 V) and power density (660 mW/cm2) compared to TS fuel cells but very less current density (1861 mA/cm2) output was observed. The experimental results evidenced that the modified flow slabs were superior in controlling the cell performance compared to traditional flow slab irrespective of their channel width. This was due to the fact that improper fuel mixing was eradicated and the flow slab effectively postponed concentration polarization. Therefore, these findings would provide progressive insights for future applications of PEM fuel cells.

Keywords: Convergent-type serpentine flow slab; Proton Exchange Membrane fuel cells; conventional flow slab; numerical simulation; concentration polarization; Computational flow design

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