Performance enhancement of air-cooled PEMFC stack by employing tapered oblique fin channels: Experimental study of a full stack and numerical analysis of a typical single cell

Kai-Qi Zhu, Quan Ding, Ben-Xi Zhang, Jiang-Hai Xu, Dan-Dan Li, Yan-Ru Yang, Duu-Jong Lee, Zhong-Min Wan and Xiao-Dong Wang

Applied Energy, 2024, vol. 358, issue C, No S0306261923019591

Abstract: In this study, a novel cathode flow field plate with additional tapered oblique fin (OF) channels is proposed for air-cooled proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) to promote their heat dissipation and output power. Air-cooled PEMFC stacks with conventional (parallel configuration) and novel flow fields are respectively manufactured and experimentally tested under various load currents. The performance and temperature distributions of the stacks are comparatively studied in detail. Besides, a three-dimensional and two-phase numerical model is established and validated by the experiment data to further comparative investigate the heat and mass transport mechanism of the two studied flow field designs. The results show that the stack with the novel flow field has higher output power, which is 4.87% higher than that with a conventional design at a load current density of 0.55 A cm−2. Due to the forced convection and secondary vortex phenomena in the OF channels, the local overheating in the porous electrode is relieved. Moreover, the entropy generations due to heat transfer of the cathode CL and cooling channels are significantly increased. The oxygen transport under cathode ribs is also noteworthily enhanced when the OF channels are adopted.

Keywords: Air-cooled PEMFCs; Temperature distribution; Stack design; Oblique fin; Forced convection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261923019591
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:358:y:2024:i:c:s0306261923019591

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2023.122595

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().