IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v321y2022ics030626192200695x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Experimental study on liquid water formation characteristics in a novel transparent proton exchange membrane fuel cell

Author

Listed:
  • Pei, Houchang
  • Xiao, Chenguang
  • Tu, Zhengkai

Abstract

Water management is critical to the operation of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). The accumulation of water in the cathode channel of a newly designed transparent PEMFC is investigated in this work. The electric quantity per square metre (qe) produced by electrochemical reaction is used to estimate the liquid water formation characteristics. Results show that the water produced by the electrochemical reaction first exists in a gaseous state in the flow channel and then transforms to liquid water.Liquid water begins to appear in the flow channel when qe reaches approximately 1.8 × 105 C·m−2 in different current density and loading rate. However, a higher current density and loading rate would decrease liquid water forming time of the fuel cell channel. In addition, cell temperature affects the qe value, and when the cell temperature rises from 45 to 75 °C, qe decreases from 2.25 × 105 to 1.5 × 105 C·m−2; the amount of charge is approximately inversely proportional to the cell temperature. Liquid water first appears at the inlet of the flow channel, specifically at the contact point between the inlet flow channel and carbon paper. Liquid water is concentrated at the edge channel of the flow field area and rarely distributed in the middle of the single cell.

Suggested Citation

  • Pei, Houchang & Xiao, Chenguang & Tu, Zhengkai, 2022. "Experimental study on liquid water formation characteristics in a novel transparent proton exchange membrane fuel cell," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 321(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:321:y:2022:i:c:s030626192200695x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2022.119349
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626192200695X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2022.119349?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Liu, Shihua & Chen, Tao & Zhang, Cheng & Xie, Yi, 2020. "Study on the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) with dead-ended anode in gravity environment," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 261(C).
    2. Wang, Qianqian & Tang, Fumin & Li, Bing & Dai, Haifeng & Zheng, Jim P. & Zhang, Cunman & Ming, Pingwen, 2022. "Investigation of the thermal responses under gas channel and land inside proton exchange membrane fuel cell with assembly pressure," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 308(C).
    3. Hasheminasab, M. & Kermani, M.J. & Nourazar, S.S. & Khodsiani, M.H., 2020. "A novel experimental based statistical study for water management in proton exchange membrane fuel cells," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).
    4. Li, Bing & Wan, Kechuang & Xie, Meng & Chu, Tiankuo & Wang, Xiaolei & Li, Xiang & Yang, Daijun & Ming, Pingwen & Zhang, Cunman, 2022. "Durability degradation mechanism and consistency analysis for proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 314(C).
    5. Zhou, Su & Fan, Lei & Zhang, Gang & Gao, Jianhua & Lu, Yanda & Zhao, Peng & Wen, Chaokai & Shi, Lin & Hu, Zhe, 2022. "A review on proton exchange membrane multi-stack fuel cell systems: architecture, performance, and power management," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 310(C).
    6. Iranzo, Alfredo & Boillat, Pierre & Biesdorf, Johannes & Salva, Antonio, 2015. "Investigation of the liquid water distributions in a 50 cm2 PEM fuel cell: Effects of reactants relative humidity, current density, and cathode stoichiometry," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 914-921.
    7. Guo, Hang & Liu, Xuan & Zhao, Jian Fu & Ye, Fang & Ma, Chong Fang, 2016. "Effect of low gravity on water removal inside proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) with different flow channel configurations," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 926-934.
    8. Guo, Hang & Zhao, Qiang & Ye, Fang, 2022. "An experimental study on gas and liquid two-phase flow in orientated-type flow channels of proton exchange membrane fuel cells by using a side-view method," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 603-618.
    9. Xia, Lingchao & Ni, Meng & He, Qijiao & Xu, Qidong & Cheng, Chun, 2021. "Optimization of gas diffusion layer in high temperature PEMFC with the focuses on thickness and porosity," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 300(C).
    10. Mortazavi, Mehdi & Tajiri, Kazuya, 2015. "Two-phase flow pressure drop in flow channels of proton exchange membrane fuel cells: Review of experimental approaches," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 296-317.
    11. Jiao, Daokuan & Jiao, Kui & Zhong, Shenghui & Du, Qing, 2022. "Investigations on heat and mass transfer in gas diffusion layers of PEMFC with a gas–liquid-solid coupled model," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 316(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Liu, Yang & Tu, Zhengkai & Chan, Siew Hwa, 2023. "Water management and performance enhancement in a proton exchange membrane fuel cell system using optimized gas recirculation devices," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 279(C).
    2. Zhou, Yu & Chen, Ben & Meng, Kai & Zhou, Haoran & Chen, Wenshang & Zhang, Ning & Deng, Qihao & Yang, Guanghua & Tu, Zhengkai, 2023. "Optimal design of a cathode flow field for performance enhancement of PEM fuel cell," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 343(C).
    3. Liu, Zhao & Chen, Huicui & Zhang, Tong, 2022. "Review on system mitigation strategies for start-stop degradation of automotive proton exchange membrane fuel cell," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 327(C).
    4. Liu, Yang & Zhao, Junjie & Tu, Zhengkai, 2024. "Detecting performance degradation in a dead-ended hydrogen-oxygen proton exchange membrane fuel cell used for an unmanned underwater vehicle," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    5. Sarjuni, C.A. & Lim, B.H. & Majlan, E.H. & Rosli, M.I., 2024. "A review: Fluid dynamic and mass transport behaviour in a proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhao, Junjie & Tu, Zhengkai & Chan, Siew Hwa, 2022. "In-situ measurement of humidity distribution and its effect on the performance of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(PD).
    2. Yao, Jing & Wu, Zhen & Wang, Huan & Yang, Fusheng & Xuan, Jin & Xing, Lei & Ren, Jianwei & Zhang, Zaoxiao, 2022. "Design and multi-objective optimization of low-temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells with efficient water recovery and high electrochemical performance," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 324(C).
    3. Ozen, Dilek Nur & Timurkutluk, Bora & Altinisik, Kemal, 2016. "Effects of operation temperature and reactant gas humidity levels on performance of PEM fuel cells," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 1298-1306.
    4. Mojtaba Baghban Yousefkhani & Hossein Ghadamian & Keyvan Daneshvar & Nima Alizadeh & Brendy C. Rincon Troconis, 2020. "Investigation of the Fuel Utilization Factor in PEM Fuel Cell Considering the Effect of Relative Humidity at the Cathode," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-11, November.
    5. Chowdhury, Mohammad Ziauddin & Timurkutluk, Bora, 2018. "Transport phenomena of convergent and divergent serpentine flow fields for PEMFC," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 104-117.
    6. Chen, Ben & Liu, Qi & Zhang, Cheng & Liu, Yang & Shen, Jun & Tu, Zhengkai, 2022. "Numerical study on water transfer characteristics under joint effect of placement orientation and flow channel size for PEMFC with dead-ended anode," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 254(PB).
    7. Li, Jinguang & Ke, Yuzhi & Yuan, Wei & Bai, Yafeng & Zhang, Baotong & Liu, Zi'ang & Lin, Zhenhe & Liu, Qingsen & Tang, Yong, 2023. "Enhancement of two-phase flow and mass transport by a two-dimensional flow channel with variable cross-sections in proton exchange membrane fuel cells," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 219(P2).
    8. Ashrafi, Moosa & Kanani, Homayoon & Shams, Mehrzad, 2018. "Numerical and experimental study of two-phase flow uniformity in channels of parallel PEM fuel cells with modified Z-type flow-fields," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 317-328.
    9. Liu, Shihua & Li, Xiaoyang & Pang, Linjia & Geng, Tie & Guo, Yonggang & Jiang, Lin & Kang, Kejia & Wang, Xinchao & Liu, Zongyao, 2022. "Study on the effect of purging time on the performance of PEMFC with dead-ended anode under gravity," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 1141-1151.
    10. Li, Yuehua & Pei, Pucheng & Ma, Ze & Ren, Peng & Wu, Ziyao & Chen, Dongfang & Huang, Hao, 2019. "Characteristic analysis in lowering current density based on pressure drop for avoiding flooding in proton exchange membrane fuel cell," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 248(C), pages 321-329.
    11. Salva, J. Antonio & Iranzo, Alfredo & Rosa, Felipe & Tapia, Elvira, 2016. "Validation of cell voltage and water content in a PEM (polymer electrolyte membrane) fuel cell model using neutron imaging for different operating conditions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 100-112.
    12. Najmi, Aezid-Ul-Hassan & Anyanwu, Ikechukwu S. & Xie, Xu & Liu, Zhi & Jiao, Kui, 2021. "Experimental investigation and optimization of proton exchange membrane fuel cell using different flow fields," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    13. Movahedi, M. & Ramiar, A. & Ranjber, A.A., 2018. "3D numerical investigation of clamping pressure effect on the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cell with interdigitated flow field," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 617-632.
    14. Sanghyun Yun & Jinwon Yun & Jaeyoung Han, 2023. "Development of a 470-Horsepower Fuel Cell–Battery Hybrid Xcient Dynamic Model Using Simscape TM," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(24), pages 1-22, December.
    15. Zenan Shen & Shaoquan Liu & Wei Zhu & Daoyuan Ren & Qiang Xu & Yu Feng, 2024. "A Review on Key Technologies and Developments of Hydrogen Fuel Cell Multi-Rotor Drones," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(16), pages 1-36, August.
    16. Su, Chao & Chen, Zhidong & Wu, Zexuan & Zhang, Jing & Li, Kaiyang & Hao, Junhong & Kong, Yanqiang & Zhang, Naiqiang, 2024. "Experimental and numerical study of thermal coupling on catalyst-coated membrane for proton exchange membrane water electrolyzer," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 357(C).
    17. Chen, Ke & Luo, Zongkai & Zou, Guofu & He, Dandi & Xiong, Zhongzhuang & Zhou, Yu & Chen, Ben, 2024. "Multi-objective optimization of gradient gas diffusion layer structures for enhancing proton exchange membrane fuel cell performance based on response surface methodology and non-dominated sorting gen," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 288(C).
    18. Zuo, Jian & Cadet, Catherine & Li, Zhongliang & Bérenguer, Christophe & Outbib, Rachid, 2024. "A deterioration-aware energy management strategy for the lifetime improvement of a multi-stack fuel cell system subject to a random dynamic load," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    19. Xing, Lei & Du, Shangfeng & Chen, Rui & Mamlouk, Mohamed & Scott, Keith, 2016. "Anode partial flooding modelling of proton exchange membrane fuel cells: Model development and validation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 80-95.
    20. Ummartyotin, S. & Bunnak, N. & Manuspiya, H., 2016. "A comprehensive review on modified clay based composite for energy based materials," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 466-472.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:321:y:2022:i:c:s030626192200695x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.