 Three dimensional numerical investigations for the effects of gas diffusion layer on PEM fuel cell performanceInamuddin,, Taqi Ahmad Cheema, S.M.J. Zaidi and S.U. Rahman Renewable Energy, 2011, vol. 36, issue 2, 529-535 Abstract: Gas diffusion layer (GDL) is an important component of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) to take part in the interplay of the transport of different species. It has been found that the performance of a PEMFC depends upon the morphology of the GDL. The performance of PEM fuel cell varies with different porosity and thickness of the GDL. Hence, a three dimensional model is simulated to find out the effects of porosity and thickness of GDL on PEMFC performance using a commercial code CFD-ACE+. It was observed that high porosity gave high current density by allowing more reactants to reach the reaction site. Similarly greater thickness of the GDL gives reactant species to increase the consumption rate at the GDL/catalyst layer interface. The simulation results showed that the connection of bipolar plate with the GDL played an important role for reducing the amount of reactants to reach the catalyst layer especially under the land area of the bipolar plate. However, this effect seems to decrease with an increase of overall porosity and the thickness of the GDL. Keywords: PEMFC; Gas diffusion layer; Bipolar plate; Thickness; Porosity; CFD-ACE+ (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:36:y:2011:i:2:p:529-535 DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2010.07.008 Access Statistics for this article Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier |
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