Study on the metal foam flow field with porosity gradient in the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell

Dong Gyun Kang, Dong Keun Lee, Jong Min Choi, Dong Kyu Shin and Min Soo Kim

Renewable Energy, 2020, vol. 156, issue C, 931-941

Abstract: It is significant to have locally non-uniform designs in the flow fields since distributions of the current density, temperature, gas, and water concentration are usually non-uniform along the flow path in the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell. In this study, we introduce and use several different metal foam flow fields with different porosity gradients as flow distributors in the fuel cell. By evaluating and analyzing polarization curve, power curve, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy test results, we verify that the tailored porosity gradient in the metal foam flow field has positive impacts the performance of the fuel cell. Maximum power density of the fuel cell with proper porosity gradient in the metal foam flow field increased by 8.23% compared with the conventional metal foam flow field without porosity gradient. In conclusion, we not only explain why proper porosity gradient in the metal foam flow field makes the performance of the fuel cell improve, but also investigate the performance enhancement in the system net power aspect.

Keywords: Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell; Metal foam; Porous flow field; Porosity gradient; High power performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148120306807
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:renene:v:156:y:2020:i:c:p:931-941

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2020.04.142

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

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