Experimental Analysis on Flow Field Pattern of PEM Fuel Cells

Abstract:

The polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells flow fields channels serve the same roles as nutrient and reactant circulation systems in plants and animals, so bio-inspired flow field channels with a similar could improve reactant uniform transport efficiency and boost fuel cell performance. In this analysis, the lung channel configuration of a humane lung and a tree leaf bio-inspired flow field channels are used as an anode and cathode bipolar plate. A channel model is developed for three new flow field patterns designs: leaf design, lung design and triple-serpentine. It has been observed that the performance improvement in terms of power in the bio-inspired flow field is 13.32% more than the triple serpentine. This indicates the bio-inspired design has good performance than other flow field design. Further a parametric steady is carried out experimentally to study the effect of cell operating temperature, anode and cathode humidity, hydrogen and oxygen flow rate on the cell performance.

• Periodical: Materials Science Forum (Volume 1065)
• Pages: 179-191
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/p-nyf254
• Online since: June 2022
• Authors: Devendra Prasad, G. Naga Srinivasulu, Ajaya Bharti, Naveen Kumar*, Syed Mohd Azam
• Keywords: CFD, Leaf Channel, Nature Inspired Flow Field, PEM Fuel Cell, Serpentine

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