Enhancement of water droplet drainage performance in a cathode flow channel with baffles for a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell

Yulin Wang, Han Wang, Guozhuo Wang, Hua Li, Yulong Zhao and Wei He

Renewable Energy, 2023, vol. 219, issue P1

Abstract: A reasonable design of flow channel is crucial for water management of a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), and thus the cell performance. This paper develops newly designed baffles on a cathode flow channel to boost the water droplet drainage ability. The water droplet drainage characteristics within the novel flow channel are investigated by using a volume of fluid (VOF) method. The results show that the baffle height and number have a significant impact on the water droplet drainage performance. An appropriately increased baffle height and number leads to a shorter water droplet drainage time with a relatively low pressure drop. The water droplet drainage time for baffle height and number of 0.25 mm and 7 is reduced to 8.5 ms from 22.5 ms compared with that for the conventional channel. However, a too large baffle height and number could yield a very large pressure drop, thereby causing the water droplet detachment from the GDL surface and finally adsorption to the sidewalls. An optimal non-uniform interval layout of baffles along the channel can further shorten the water droplet drainage time by 6.25%. These findings can guide the optimal design of flow channels with baffles for a high-performance fuel cell.

Keywords: Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell; Flow channel; Baffles; Water droplet drainage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148123013101
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:219:y:2023:i:p1:s0960148123013101

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2023.119395

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 ().