IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/renene/v50y2013icp763-779.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Water dynamics inside a cathode channel of a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell

Author

Listed:
  • Hossain, Mamdud
  • Islam, Sheikh Zahidul
  • Colley-Davies, Amy
  • Adom, Ebenezer

Abstract

The present study focuses on the investigation of water dynamics inside a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell using two different modelling approaches: Eulerian two-phase mixture and volume of fluid interface tracking models. The Eulerian two-phase mixture model has provided overall information of species distribution inside a fuel cell and identified that the liquid water usually accumulates under the land area. The volume of fluid interface tracking model has then been implemented to investigate the emergence of water droplets from the gas diffusion layer into the cathode channel and the subsequent removal of water from the channel. Further, the effects of the location of water emergence in the cathode channel on the dynamic behavior of liquid water have been investigated. The present study shows that the water emerging into the channel near the side walls greatly reduces the surface water coverage of the channel. In order to control the water path into the channel near side walls, a further discussion has been provided that a gas diffusion layer design based on hydrophilic fibres distributed inside a hydrophobic fibre matrix could provide a precisely controlled water path through the gas diffusion layer.

Suggested Citation

  • Hossain, Mamdud & Islam, Sheikh Zahidul & Colley-Davies, Amy & Adom, Ebenezer, 2013. "Water dynamics inside a cathode channel of a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 763-779.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:50:y:2013:i:c:p:763-779
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2012.08.041
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148112005113
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.renene.2012.08.041?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. Yu, Li-jun & Ren, Geng-po & Qin, Ming-jun & Jiang, Xiu-min, 2009. "Transport mechanisms and performance simulations of a PEM fuel cell with interdigitated flow field," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 530-543.
    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. Qin, Yanzhou & Guo, Qiaoyu & Chen, Rouxian & Zhuang, Yuan & Wang, Yulin, 2021. "Numerical investigation of water droplet impact on PEM fuel cell flow channel surface," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 750-763.
    2. Jin Hyun Kim & Woo Tae Kim, 2018. "Numerical Investigation of Gas-Liquid Two-Phase Flow inside PEMFC Gas Channels with Rectangular and Trapezoidal Cross Sections," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-18, May.
    3. Ashrafi, Moosa & Shams, Mehrzad, 2017. "The effects of flow-field orientation on water management in PEM fuel cells with serpentine channels," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 1083-1096.
    4. Feng, Pengfei & Tan, Ligang & Cao, Yucheng & Chen, Ding, 2023. "Numerical investigations of two-phase flow coupled with species transport in proton exchange membrane fuel cells," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 278(PA).

    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. 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.
    2. Hossain, Mamdud & Islam, Sheikh Zahidul & Pollard, Patricia, 2013. "Investigation of species transport in a gas diffusion layer of a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell through two-phase modelling," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 404-418.
    3. Tavakoli, B. & Roshandel, R., 2011. "The effect of fuel cell operational conditions on the water content distribution in the polymer electrolyte membrane," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(12), pages 3319-3331.
    4. Ramiar, A. & Mahmoudi, A.H. & Esmaili, Q. & Abdollahzadeh, M., 2016. "Influence of cathode flow pulsation on performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cell with interdigitated gas distributors," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 206-217.
    5. Abdollahzadeh, M. & Pascoa, J.C. & Ranjbar, A.A. & Esmaili, Q., 2014. "Analysis of PEM (Polymer Electrolyte Membrane) fuel cell cathode two-dimensional modeling," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 478-494.

    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:renene:v:50:y:2013:i:c:p:763-779. 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.journals.elsevier.com/renewable-energy .

    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.