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Scaling up Studies on PEMFC Using a Modified Serpentine Flow Field Incorporating Porous Sponge Inserts to Observe Water Molecules

Authors :
Muthukumar Marappan
Rengarajan Narayanan
Karthikeyan Manoharan
Magesh Kannan Vijayakrishnan
Karthikeyan Palaniswamy
Smagul Karazhanov
Senthilarasu Sundaram
Source :
Molecules, Vol 26, Iss 2, p 286 (2021)
Publication Year :
2021
Publisher :
MDPI AG, 2021.

Abstract

Flooding of the cathode flow channel is a major hindrance in achieving maximum performance from Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC) during the scaling up process. Water accumulated between the interface region of Gas Diffusion Layer (GDL) and rib of the cathode flow field can be removed by the use of Porous Sponge Inserts (PSI) on the ribs. In the present work, the experimental investigations are carried out on PEMFC for the various reaction areas, namely 25, 50 and 100 cm2. Stoichiometry value of 2 is maintained for all experiments to avoid variations in power density obtained due to differences in fuel utilization. The experiments include two flow fields, namely Serpentine Flow Field (SFF) and Modified Serpentine with Staggered provisions of 4 mm PSI (4 mm × 2 mm × 2 mm) Flow Field (MSSFF). The peak power densities obtained on MSSFF are 0.420 W/cm2, 0.298 W/cm2 and 0.232 W/cm2 compared to SFF which yields 0.242 W/cm2, 0.213 W/cm2 and 0.171 W/cm2 for reaction areas of 25, 50 and 100 cm2 respectively. Further, the reliability of experimental results is verified for SFF and MSSFF on 25 cm2 PEMFC by using Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS). The use of 4 mm PSI is found to improve the performance of PEMFC through the better water management.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
14203049
Volume :
26
Issue :
2
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Molecules
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.196fe2507aa34140a8e50dd10d903803
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules26020286