Application of homogenous metal foams with serpentine structure for PEM fuelcell flow distributors

In the recent decades, most of the fuel cells have usedribbed/channels (e.g., parallel-serpentine) as flow fieldwhich are not an ideal choice for reactant distribution andproduct removal. In order to mitigate these issues, foambasedflow distributors (FFD) have been proposed. In spiteof moderate mass transport enhancement for a satisfactoryreactant diffusion, concave corners are not feedsufficiently and ensue lack of reactant gases on the activearea. In the current study, a solution is proposed for FFDswith the aim of enhancing the reactant gases distributionon the active area. This is done via computational fluiddynamics simulation at ANSYS fluent software. First ahomogenous foam has been studied and later byimplementing three, five and seven blades inside the foamand forming a serpentine structure, it was tried to deviatethe flow toward the dead zones at concave corners.Contours of pressure, velocity and oxygen mole fraction isextracted and compared for all four layouts of FFD. Theresults revealed that at current density value of ۰.۵ (A/m۲),the average value of oxygen mole fraction for the three,five and seven blade-implemented layouts are respectively۴۲.۰۳%, ۴۱.۴۲% and ۳۹.۴۶% more than that of the bladelesslayout. Furthermore, pressure gradient for the bladelesslayout and for the three, five and seven bladeimplementedlayouts are respectively ۵۹.۲, ۲۰۱.۸, ۳۳۱.۴and ۵۴۲.۸ (mBar/m). Based on the results, utilizing thethree blades layout has been proposed as a replacement ofthe blade-less layout.

کلیدواژه ها:

Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell ، Homogenous foam ، Dead zone ، Flow guiding blade ، Numerical simulation