Effects of agglomerate arrangement on the performance of a PEMFC cathode catalyst layer

In the present study, the reactive air flow in a cathodeelectrode of a PEMFC is simulated through a multiscalelattice Boltzmann approach. To model catalystlayer (CL), a well-validated two-dimensional singlephaselattice Boltzmann agglomerate model is adopted.To investigate the effects of agglomerate arrangementon the CL performance, species distributions in the poreregion, electrical potential distribution in the electrolytefilm, and current density distribution at the interface ofmembrane and CL are presented and analyzed for bothuniform and non-uniform agglomerate arrangements.The results establish the fact that the distribution ofspecies, water content, electric potential and currentdensity in the CL, i.e. the CL performance, is stronglyaffected by agglomerate arrangement in the CL. Theresults of this study can be helpful to improve catalystlayer microstructure, and subsequently its performance.

کلیدواژه ها:

Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell(PEMFC) ، lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) ، agglomeratemodel ، catalyst layer (CL) ، agglomerate arrangement.