Numerical study on heat and mass transfer characteristics of a novel cooling channel in PEM fuel cell

Abstract

Unreasonable cooling channel arrangement and cooling water flow distribution in proton exchange membrane fuel cell will cause large heat loss and low efficiency. Therefore, to improve performance of fuel cell, parallel serpentine channel (Type-C channel) and composite channel (Type-D channel) are proposed in this article, and compared with traditional parallel channel (Type-A channel) and traditional serpentine channel (Type-B channel), temperature standard deviation is proposed, advantages of designed channel are evaluated by comprehensively comparing the water content distribution, temperature gradient and distribution characteristics of cooling channels and proton exchange membrane. Results show when cooling water flow rate increases from 0.2 to 0.8m/s, pressure drop of proposed Type-C and D channels are much smaller than that of Type-B channels. In addition, temperature distribution of Type-C is more uniform than that of Type-A and Type-D channels. Considering above factors, Type-C channel provides a good reference for the subsequent channel design and development direction.

Keywords:

• Distribution field
• heat and mass transfer performance
• parallel serpentine channel
• pressure drop
• proton exchange membrane fuel cell

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (No. SJCX21_1712).