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Three‐dimensional Modeling of Gas Purge in a Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell with Co‐flow and Counter‐flow Pattern
Author(s) -
Xu Peng,
Xu Sichuan
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
fuel cells
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.485
H-Index - 69
eISSN - 1615-6854
pISSN - 1615-6846
DOI - 10.1002/fuce.201700101
Subject(s) - purge , proton exchange membrane fuel cell , mass transfer , membrane , chemistry , water vapor , electrolyte , water transport , saturation (graph theory) , chemical engineering , chromatography , water flow , environmental engineering , waste management , environmental science , electrode , engineering , mathematics , combinatorics , biochemistry , organic chemistry
Gas purge is commonly utilized to minimize residual water after shutdown of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) in cold weather, aiming to reduce damage of ice formation on cell performance and durability. In this paper, a three‐dimensional multiphase gas purge model of proton exchange membrane fuel cell with co‐flow and counter‐flow pattern is established to investigate water removal characteristics using two‐fluid model. The present model mainly includes water transport in membrane, mass transfer between dissolved water and water vapor in catalyst layer (CL), phase change between liquid water and water vapor in porous media. Several cases with co‐flow and counter‐flow pattern have been investigated numerically. In the last, gas purge time comparison between a fresh cell and degraded cell is conducted. The numerical results show that counter‐flow pattern is better in keeping even water content distribution and avoiding over‐drying of membrane. Time constant for gas purge is different in terms of different final target value: water vapor, liquid water saturation, membrane water content. Degraded cells have 2 more seconds than fresh cells when cell temperature is 80 °C and velocity of purge gas 1m s −1 .