气体扩散层结构对PEMFC性能影响二维数值模拟

质子交换膜燃料电池在运行过程中反应物从流道传输至催化层时会经过气体扩散层,气体扩散层即 可用来传输反应气体,又用来排出反应物生成的水,所以探究气体扩散层的结构对参加反应的物质及生成物 传输的影响规律有助于了解其分布情况。通过数值模拟比较了穿孔型、树状型和不规则形状气体扩散层在不 同孔隙率下顺流流动时对电池性能的影响情况。计算结果表明,气体扩散层结构严重影响质子交换膜燃料电 池性能,三种不同形状的气体扩散层对应的电性能随孔隙率的变化规律各不相同,到达催化层表面氧气的含 量受扩散层结构影响比氢气大,气体扩散层结构对阴极侧生成物水含量的影响不可忽略。     

基于XCT的气体扩散层传输特性孔尺度模拟

为了探究质子交换膜燃料电池气体扩散层中孔隙率对各向异性传输特性的影响，先利用X射线计算机断层扫描（XCT）可视化技术方法对Freudenberg H2315 GDL气体扩散层进行三维微观结构重构，随后利用孔尺度模型分别研究了气体有效扩散率、曲度、有效电导率、有效热导率与孔隙率的关系，利用格子-玻尔兹曼模型研究液态水渗透率在厚度方向和平面内方向与孔隙率的关系，以及液态水饱和度和毛细压强的关系。结果表明：孔隙率对传输特性有显著的影响，Freudenberg H2315GDL气体扩散层表现出明显的各向同性。     

PEMFC电极孔隙率的优化研究

对质子交换膜燃料电池单体建立了三维稳态电化学模型,考察了气体扩散层孔隙率对电池性能的影响,验证了扩散层孔隙率及层厚的变化反映从气体通道到扩散层和催化剂层的反应气体扩散量,进而影响电化学反应的活跃程度;以膜与阴极催化剂层界面处获得的最大电压为目标函数,采用鲍威尔搜索法对气体扩散层孔隙率进行数值优化,得到了扩散层孔隙率和层厚的最优值。通过优化前后氧气浓度和电流密度的对比显示,这些参数可以显著改善电极的传质性能,使燃料电池获得最佳性能。     

质子交换膜燃料电池数值分析

建立了一个三维的数学模型来模拟研究质子交换膜燃料电池,以及流道里流体的流动、阳极氢气和阴极氧气各组分的传递、热量传递、电荷传递、和氧化还原的电化学反应动力学,得到了电池内的组分浓度分布情况、温度场分布情况、以及多孔扩散层孔隙率对电池性能的影响.     

扩散层结构对质子交换膜燃料电池性能的影响

设计了等效孔隙率为0.67且含有不同孔径分布的5种扩散层,并建立了二维、单相、等温的质子交换膜燃料电池稳态模型,模拟研究了扩散层内不同孔径分布对电池性能的影响。研究表明,扩散层骨架的特性直接影响电池的电性能,电子通道的最小尺寸会影响极化曲线欧姆极化区的斜率;阳极侧氢气的传输受孔结构影响不大,认为基本不受孔结构的影响;在阴极侧,氧气的传输受气体通道与流道交界面尺寸的影响。     

扩散层孔隙率对PEMFC性能影响的模拟研究

为了研究扩散层孔隙率对质子交换膜燃料电池(PEMFC)性能的影响,采用COMSOL软件,通过数值模拟得出气体扩散层不同孔隙率(0.2,0.4,0.6和0.8)时,单直通道和具有楔形肋片(长1 mm,高1.5 mm,宽2 mm)的PEMFC性能曲线、阴极氧气质量分数分布和水质量分数分布。结果表明:扩散层孔隙率对燃料电池性能具有较大影响,随着扩散层孔隙率从0.2增大到0.8,PEMFC的电流密度逐渐增加,最大可达847 mA/cm~2;相对于单直通道,增加孔隙率比添加楔形肋片更利于提升电池性能;在孔隙率为0.6和0.8时,氧气更易扩散到反应区,排水效果更好。     

不同材料作为阳极扩散层对质子交换膜水电解池性能的影响

文章分别选用钛毡、烧结钛板与碳纸作为阳极气体扩散层,组装单节质子交换膜水电解池,并进行极化曲线和稳定性测试,以及交流阻抗测试和物理表征。研究结果表明:在常压,60℃的条件下,钛毡具有最好的电解性能;在电流密度为2.0 A/cm~2的稳定性测试中,烧结钛板扩散层、钛毡扩散层和碳纸扩散层的衰减率分别为65,73,386 mV/h;钛毡更适合作为质子交换膜水电解池的阳极扩散层。     

质子交换膜燃料电池内电荷传递的数值模拟

为深入研究质子交换膜燃料电池内电荷传递的规律,发展了一个三维的单相流、非等温数学模型,模型考虑了电子在催化层和扩散层、质子在催化层和质子交换膜中的传递。通过计算得到了电池内电位和电流密度的空间分布,分析了不同电极结构参数下电流密度的分布和最终造成的性能差异。结果表明,欧姆电位的下降主要发生在膜相电位,而碳相电位的下降几乎可以忽略不计;电流密度在流道与集电极交界处出现＂火焰形＂累积效应;改变电池的结构对电池性能影响不大,应结合加工成本和电流密度分布综合考虑。     

直接液体甲醇燃料电池流场组织行为研究(Ⅰ) 传统对称流道电池的模型建立

建立了直接甲醇燃料电池垂直流道方向电池单元的二维稳态数学模型,考虑了电化学动力学、多组分传递和甲醇渗透影响.计算了流道布置密度、扩散层、催化层和质子交换膜等组件尺度对电池内物料传质特性、化学反应组织和电池输出性能的影响.研究发现,增加流道布置密度、增加催化层厚度能有效提高电极反应均匀性和电池性能.其中催化层和质子膜的厚度影响最为显著,在该文研究范围内分别可提高电池的平均电流密度131.0%和17.8%.而扩散层和质子交换膜厚度都存在一个最佳值,需要与以上流场板设计尺寸和膜电极尺寸匹配.     

质子交换膜燃料电池建模及水热传输特性分析

针对质子交换膜燃料电池(PEMFC)水管理开展了研究,建立了一维非等温两相流解析模型,研究了不同电流密度、微孔层接触角和不同加湿方案对电池内部水分布和温度分布的影响,提出了更好的进气加湿方案。结果表明:电流密度增大会导致阳极拖干、阴极水淹加剧,导致电池各部分温度上升。因各层材料亲水性不同,在交界面处能观察到液态水阶跃现象。增大微孔层接触角促进阴极液态水反扩散到阳极,一定程度上缓解阳极变干,但过大的接触角可能导致阴极水淹加剧。通过采取"阳极充分加湿、阴极低加湿"的进气加湿方案可以有效提高电池性能,并且能在一定程度改善电池内部受热,提高电池使用寿命。     

Two-dimensional numerical pore-scale investigation of oxygen evolution in proton exchange membrane electrolysis cells

Oxygen blocking the porous transport layer (PTL) increases the mass transport loss, and then limits the high current density condition of proton exchange membrane electrolysis cells (PEMEC). In this paper, a two-dimensional transient mathematical model of anode two-phase flow in PEMEC is established by the fluid volume method (VOF) method. The transport mechanism of oxygen in porous layer is analyzed in details. The effects of liquid water flow velocity, porosity, fiber diameter and contact angle on oxygen pressure and saturation are studied. The results show that the oxygen bubble transport in the porous layer is mainly affected by capillary pressure and follows the transport mechanism of ‘pressurization breakthrough depressurization’. The oxygen bubble goes through three stages of growth, migration and separation in the channel, and then be carried out of the electrolysis cell by liquid water. When oxygen breaks through the porous layer and enters the flow channel, there is a phenomenon that the branch flow is merged into the main stream, and the last limiting throat affects the maximum pressure and oxygen saturation during stable condition. In addition, increasing the liquid water velocity is helpful to bubble separation; changing the porosity and fiber diameter directly affects the width of pore throat and the correlative capillary pressure; increasing porosity, reducing fiber diameter and contact angle can promote oxygen breakthrough and reduce the stable saturation of oxygen.     

Multi-dimensional liquid water transport in the cathode of a PEM fuel cell with consideration of the micro-porous layer (MPL)

A multi-dimensional two-phase PEM fuel cell model, which is capable of handling the liquid water transport across different porous materials, including the catalyst layer (CL), the micro-porous layer (MPL), and the macro-porous gas diffusion medium (GDM), has been developed and applied in this paper for studying the liquid water transport phenomena with consideration of the MPL. Numerical simulations show that the liquid water saturation would maintain the highest value inside the catalyst layer while it possesses the lowest value inside the MPL, a trend consistent qualitatively with the high-resolution neutron imaging data. The present multi-dimensional model can clearly distinguish the different effects of the current-collecting land and the gas channel on the liquid water transport and distribution inside a PEM fuel cell, a feature lacking in the existing one-dimensional models. Numerical results indicate that the MPL would serve as a barrier for the liquid water transport on the cathode side of a PEM fuel cell.     

Numerical investigations on liquid water removal from the porous gas diffusion layer by reactant flow

Water removal from the gas diffusion layer (GDL) is crucial for the efficient operation of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell. Static pressure gradient caused by the fast reactant flow in the flow channel is one of the main mechanisms of water removal from GDL. Reactant can leak or cross directly to the neighboring channel via the porous GDL in the cells with serpentine flow channel and many of its modifications. Such cross flow plays an important role for the removal of liquid water accumulated in the GDL especially under land area. To investigate the characteristics of liquid water behavior in the GDL under pressure gradient, the fibrous porous structure of the carbon paper is modeled by three dimensional impermeable cylinders randomly distributed in the in-plane directions and unsteady two-phase simulations are conducted. It is shown that the permeability from the numerical model matches well the experimental measurements of the common GDLs in the literature. The contact angle and pressure gradient are the key parameters that determine the initiation and the process of liquid water transport in the GDL which is initially wet with stagnant liquid water. It has been observed that the larger contact angle results in faster water removal from the GDL. Numerical simulations are performed for a wide range of pressure gradient with different contact angles to determine the minimum pressure gradient that initiates the liquid water transport in the GDL. It is found that the amount of pressure gradient caused by the cross flow is sufficient and effective to get rid of the liquid water accumulated in the GDL. The simulation results are also compared with experimental data in literature showing a good agreement. The characteristics of liquid water discharging from the gas diffusion layer are also described.     

Numerical studies of liquid water behaviors in PEM fuel cell cathode considering transport across different porous layers

In this paper, a two-phase two-dimensional PEM fuel cell model, which is capable of handling liquid water transport across different porous materials, is employed for parametric studies of liquid water transport and distribution in the cathode of a PEM fuel cell. Attention is paid particularly to the coupled effects of two-phase flow and heat transfer phenomena. The effects of key operation parameters, including the outside cell boundary temperature, the cathode gas humidification condition, and the cell operation current, on the liquid water behaviors and cell performance have been examined in detail. Numerical results elucidate that increasing the fuel cell temperature would not only enhance liquid water evaporation and thus decrease the liquid saturation inside the PEM fuel cell cathode, but also change the location where liquid water is condensed or evaporated. At a cell boundary temperature of 80 °C, liquid water inside the catalyst layer and gas diffusion media under the current-collecting land would flow laterally towards the gas channel and become evaporated along an interface separating the land and channel. As the cell boundary temperature increases, the maximum current density inside the membrane would shift laterally towards the current-collecting land, a phenomenon dictated by membrane hydration. Increasing the gas humidification condition in the cathode gas channel and/or increasing the operating current of the fuel cell could offset the temperature effect on liquid water transport and distribution.     

Development of an experimentally validated semi-empirical fully-coupled performance model of a PEM electrolysis cell with a 3-D structured porous transport layer

A semi-empirical non-isothermal model incorporating coupled momentum, heat and mass transport phenomena for predicting the performance of a proton exchange membrane (PEM) water electrolysis cell operating without flow channels is presented. Model input parameters such as electro-kinetics properties and mean pore size of the porous transport layer (PTL) were determined by rotating disc electrode and capillary flow porometry, respectively. This is the first report of a semi-empirical fully coupled model which allows one to quantify and investigate the effect of the gas phase and bubble coverage on PEM cell performance up to very high current densities of about 5 A/cm². The mass transport effects are discussed in terms of the operating conditions, design parameters and the microstructure of the PTL. The results show that, the operating temperature and pressure, and the inlet water flowrate and thickness of the PTL are the critical parameters for mitigating mass transport limitation at high current densities. The model presented here can serve as a tool for further development and scale-up effort in the area of PEM water electrolysis, and provide insight during the design stage.     

Parameter sensitivity examination for a complete three-dimensional,two-phase,non-isothermal model of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell

Parameter sensitivity analysis is carried out for a complete three-dimensional, two-phase, non-isothermal model of polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell with a parallel flow field design. The model couples the two-phase flow of the multi-component reactants and liquid water, species transport, electrochemical reactions, proton and electron transport, and the electro-osmosis transport, back diffusion of water in the membrane, and energy transport. Twenty nine parameters, which are classified into the structural or transport parameters of porous layers (tortuosity, porosity, permeability, proton conductivity, electron conductivity, and thermal conductivity) as well as the electrochemical parameters (anodic and cathodic exchange current densities, anodic and cathodic transfer coefficients for anode and cathode reactions), are used to implement individual parameter investigation. The results show the parameters can be divided in to strongly sensitive, conditional sensitive and weak sensitive parameters according to its effect on the cell polarization curve. The optimization of parameters of cathode gas diffusion layer (GDL) and catalyst layer (CL) is more important to improve cell performance than that of anode GDL and CL because liquid water transport and removal affect significantly membrane hydration and reactant transport. Electrochemical parameters determine the activation potential and the slope of ohmic polarization hence these parameters can be used to fit experimental polarization curve more effectively than the other parameters.     

Ex situ visualization of liquid water transport in PEM fuel cell gas diffusion layers

A novel fluorescence microscopy technique for visualizing the transport of liquid water in unsaturated hydrophobic fibrous media has been developed and is applied to the gas diffusion layer of a PEM fuel cell. In the experiments, fluorescein dye solution is pumped through the fibrous hydrophobic gas diffusion layer (GDL) and imaged with fluorescence microscopy. Transient image intensity data is correlated to the liquid surface height and is analyzed and presented in the form of three-dimensional reconstructions of the time-evolving gas/liquid interface inside the fibrous structure. The high spatial resolution of the visualization can resolve the dynamic transport of liquid water through distinct pathways, which helps to refine understanding regarding liquid water transport mechanism within these porous layers. The physical observations suggest that the water is not transported via a converging capillary tree as suggested in prior work and models. Rather, transport is dominated by fingering and channeling. Based on the physical insight obtained from the experiments, a new water transport scheme is proposed as the basis for developing improved models for water transport in hydrophobic gas diffusion layers.     

The effects of porosity distribution variation on PEM fuel cell performance

Gas diffusion layers (GDL) are one of the important parts of the PEM fuel cell as they serve to transport the reactant gases to the catalyst layer. Porosity of this layer has a large effect on the PEM fuel cell performance. The spatial variation in porosity arises due to two effects: (1) compression of the electrode on the solid landing areas and (2) water produced at the cathode side of gas diffusion layers. Both of these factors change the porosity of gas diffusion layers and affect the fuel cell performance. To implement this performance analysis, a mathematical model which considers oxygen and hydrogen mass fraction in gas diffusion layer and the electrical current density in the catalyst layer, and the fuel cell potentials are investigated. The porosity variation in the GDL is calculated by considering the applied pressure and the amount of the water generated in the cell. The validity of the model is approved by comparing the computed results with experimental data. The obtained results show that the decrease in the average porosity causes the reduction in oxygen consumption, so that a lower electrical current density is generated. It is also shown that when the electrical current density is low, the porosity variation in gas diffusion layer has no significant influence on the level of polarization whereas at higher current density the influence is very significant. The porosity variation causes non-uniformity in the mass transport which in turn reduces the current density and a lower fuel cell performance is obtained.     

Rigorous dynamic model of a direct methanol fuel cell based on Maxwell–Stefan mass transport equations and a Flory–Huggins activity model: Formulation and experimental validation

A one-dimensional rigorous process model of a single-cell direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) is presented. Multi-component mass transport in the diffusion layers and the polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) is described using the generalised Maxwell–Stefan (MS) equation for porous structures. In the PEM, also local swelling behaviour and non-idealities are accounted for by a Flory–Huggins model for the activities of the mobile species inside the pores of the PEM. Phase equilibria between the pore liquid inside the PEM and those inside the pores of both catalyst layer are formulated based on literature data and activity models. Although two-phase behaviour in both diffusion layers is neglected, the model shows good agreement to own experimental data over a wide range of operating conditions, with respect to methanol and water crossover fluxes as well as to current–voltage characteristics. Only for very low current densities and in the limiting current regime significant deviations between model and experiments are found.     

VOF modelling of gas–liquid flow in PEM water electrolysis cell micro-channels

In this study, the gas–liquid flow through an interdigitated anode flow field of a PEM water electrolysis cell (PEMEC) is analysed using a three-dimensional, transient, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. To account for two-phase flow, the volume of fluid (VOF) method in ANSYS Fluent 17.2 is used. The modelled geometry consists of the anode channels and the anode transport layer (ATL). To reduce the complexity of the phenomena governing PEMEC operation, the dependence upon electro-chemistry is disregarded. Instead, a fixed source of the gas is applied at the interface between the ATL and the catalyst layer. An important phenomenon that the model is able to capture is the gas–liquid contact angle on both the channel wall and ATL-channel interface. Particularly, the latter interface is crucial in capturing bubble entrainment into the channel. To validate the numerical simulation, photos taken of the gas–liquid flow in a transparent micro-channel, are qualitative compared against the simulation results. The experimental observations confirm the models prediction of long Taylor bubbles with small bubbles in between. From the simulation results, further intriguing details of the flow are revealed. From the bottom to the top of the outgoing channel, the film thickness gradually increases from zero to 200 μm. This increase in the film thickness is due to the particular superficial velocity field that develops in an interdigitated flow. Here both the superficial velocities change along the length of the channel. The model is capable of revealing effect of different bubble shapes/lengths in the outgoing channel. Shape and the sequence of the bubbles affect the water flow distribution in the ATL. The model presented in this work is the first step in the development of a comprehensive CFD model that comprises multiphase flow in porous media and micro-channel, electro-chemistry in catalyst layers, ion transport in membrane, hydrogen evolution, etc. The model can aid in the study of gas–liquid flow and its impact on the performance of a PEMEC.