Mass transport and performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cell considering the influence of porosity distribution of gas diffusion layer

ABSTRACT

As a key component of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell, gas diffusion layer (GDL) plays an important role in mass transport process. In this study, the layered setting method is used to cut the GDL along the thickness direction, and the porosity of different layers is set to make it have porosity distribution along the thickness direction. The influence of five porosity distributions of GDL on the internal mass transport process and performance of fuel cell is studied. It is found that the porosity gradient and distribution shape of the GDL affects the effective diffusion coefficient of the reactant gas, and larger porosity gradient leads to poorer uniformity of the gas diffusion coefficient distribution, which is not conducive to the internal mass transport of fuel cell. When the porosity gradient of the GDL is smaller, the gas diffusion process occurs more uniformly, the electrochemical reaction rate is higher, and the performance of the fuel cell is better. In addition, the inverted “V” shaped porosity distribution along the thickness direction of the GDL is more conducive to the reactant gas transport and fuel cell performance than the “V” shaped porosity distribution.

KEYWORDS:

• Proton exchange membrane fuel cell
• gas diffusion layer
• porosity distribution
• mass transport
• fuel cell performance

Table

Acknowledgments

This work is financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51706153 and 22005214).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

Yuwen Liu: Methodology, Investigation, Visualization, Writing-Original draft preparation, Writing-Reviewing and Editing. Shiyu Wu: Methodology, Software, Writing-Reviewing and Editing. Yanzhou Qin: Formal analysis, Writing-Reviewing and Editing, Resource, Supervision. Mengfei Zhang: Formal analysis. Xin Liu: Writing-Reviewing and Editing. Junfeng Zhang: Writing-Reviewing and Editing. Yan Yin: Writing-Reviewing and Editing.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [22005214, No. 51706153].