Numerical Investigations of the Combined Effects of Flow Rate and Methanol Concentration on DMFC Performance

Xuqu Hu, Xingyi Wang, Juanzhong Chen, Qinwen Yang, Dapeng Jin and Xiang Qiu
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Xuqu Hu: State Key Laboratory of Advanced Design and Manufacturing for Vehicle Body, College of Mechanical and Vehicle Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
Xingyi Wang: State Key Laboratory of Advanced Design and Manufacturing for Vehicle Body, College of Mechanical and Vehicle Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
Juanzhong Chen: State Key Laboratory of Advanced Design and Manufacturing for Vehicle Body, College of Mechanical and Vehicle Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
Qinwen Yang: State Key Laboratory of Advanced Design and Manufacturing for Vehicle Body, College of Mechanical and Vehicle Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
Dapeng Jin: State Key Laboratory of Advanced Design and Manufacturing for Vehicle Body, College of Mechanical and Vehicle Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
Xiang Qiu: College of Science, Shanghai Institute of Technology, Shanghai 201418, China

Energies, 2017, vol. 10, issue 8, 1-15

Abstract: A modified 3D numerical model on the energy conversion process in the anode side of a Direct Methanol Fuel Cell (DMFC) system was constructed and validated to published experimental results. Systematic simulations were performed to investigate the underlying mechanisms of the energy conversion process, and the combined effects of inlet flow rate and input methanol concentration were summarized systematically. The increase of flow rate was found to be an effective strategy to accelerate the internal flow fields, while the diffusion layer was proposed to be a critical component in the design of high-performance DMFC. The frontier for optimal conditions of DMFC’s output was also determined, which can be helpful to improve the energy conversion performance of DMFC in practical applications.

Keywords: direct methanol fuel cell; energy conversion; multi-phase flow; oxygen availability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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