Investigation of purge time in cathodic dead-end mode PEMFC

Document Type : Full Length Research Article

Authors

1 School of Mechanical Engineering, Babol Noshirvani University of Technology, Iran

2 School of Mechanical Engineering, Amol Islamic Azad University, Iran

Abstract

 Recently, special type of fuel cells has been developed that operates in a Dead End mode. Working in this condition, the Dead-End fuel cell is supplied with
hydrogen almost at the same rate of consumption. It is noteworthy to mention that
all of the water transport mechanisms have been considered in this simulation.
Water accumulation that is directly proportional to the cell current is of a great
importance and has a negative impact on the cell voltage and its performance.
Hence, water and gas management in Dead-End mode should be handled properly.
To do so, determining the suitable time of purge and its duration is valuable with a
direct impact on cell performance. In this paper, the channel and gas diffusion layer
have been considered as a single control volume and the blockage effect has been
investigated by means of thermodynamic analysis. In order to obtain a reasonable
assumption, we have studied three different scenarios: GDL flooding, channel
flooding and GDL-channel flooding simultaneously. The influence of blockage
effect rate of gas diffusion layer and channel on cell voltage drop, performance and
purge time have been studied. Voltage drop curves in different operating conditions
have been presented and the results show an acceptable agreement with
experimental studies. These curves have been investigated for different current
densities (0.5, 1 and 1.5 A/cm2), active areas (25, 50 and 100 cm2) and
temperatures (60-80 °C).An Increase in temperature and in current density, reduces
purge time interval, while increasing active area has an inverse impact. In high
current densities, the effect of temperature variation can be neglected.

Keywords

References

[1].    F. Barbir, PEM Fuel Cells Theory And Practice, International Centre for Hydrogen Energy Technologies, Turkey, (2005).
[2].    S. Asghari, An investigation into the effect of anode purging on the fuel cell performance, International Of Journal Of Hydrogen Energy, 35, 9276-9282, (2010).
[3].    J.W. Choi, An experimental study on the purge characteristics of the cathodic dead-end mode PEMFC for the submarine or aerospace applications and performance improvement with the pulsation effects, International Of Journal Of Hydrogen Energy, 35, 3698-3711, (2010).
[4].    A.J. del Real, Development and experimental validation of a PEM fuel cell dynamic model, Journal of Power Sources, 173, 310-324, (2007).
[5].    J.W. Choi, Experimental study on enhancing the fuel efficiency of an anodic dead-end mode polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell by oscillating the hydrogen, International Of Journal Of Hydrogen Energy, 35, 12469-12479, (2010).
[6].    A.S. Mujumdar, Performance evaluation of a polymer electrolyte fuel cell with a dead-end anode: A computational fluid dynamic study, International Of Journal Of Hydrogen Energy, 36, 10917-10933, (2011)
[7].    Y. Kim, An experimental study on water transport through the membrane of a PEFC operating in the dead-end mode, International Of Journal Of Hydrogen Energy, 34(18), 7768-7779, (2009).
[8].    C. Y. Wang, Two-phase transport and the role of micro-porous layer in polymer electrolyte fuel cells, Journal of Electrochemical Acta, 49, 4359-4369, (2004).
[9].    C. Y. Wang, Liquid Water Transport in Gas Diffusion Layer of Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells, Journal of The Electrochemical Society, 151(3), A399-A406, (2004).
[10]. S. Jayanti,Effect of air flow on liquid water transport through a hydrophobic gas diffusion layer of a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell, International Of Journal Of Hydrogen Energy, 35, 6872-6886, (2010).
[11]. J. Larminie, Fuel Cell Systems Explained, Second ed,Wiley, England, (2003).
[12]. M. Mench,Fuel Cell Engines, Wiley, United State of America,(2008).
[13]. J.T. Pukrushpan, Modeling And Control Of Fuel Cell Systems And Fuel Processors, PhD Thesis, University of Michigan, Michigan, (2003).
[14]. J.B. Siegel,Experiments and Modeling of PEM Fuel Cells for Dead-Ended Anode Operation, PhD Thesis, University of Michigan, Michigan, (2010).
[15]. A. Pulung Sasmito, Modeling Of Transport Phenomena In Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cell Stacks: Thermal, Water And Gas Management, PhD Thesis, National University of Singapore, Singapore, (2010).
[16]. Ch. Quick,Characterization of water transport in gas diffusion media, Journal of Power Sources, 190, 110-120, (2009).
[17]. Z. Lu,Water management studies in PEM fuel cells, part III: Dynamic breakthrough and intermittent drainage characteristics from GDLs with and without MPLs, International Journal Of Hydrogen Energy, 35, 4222-4233, (2010).
[18]. J. Benziger, ,. “Water flow in the gas diffusion layer of PEM fuel cells”. Journal of Membrane Science, 261, May, pp. 98-106, (2005).
[19]. M.C. Potter, Fluid Mechanics, United State of America, (2008).
[20]. M.M. Abdollahzadeh, Quasi two dimensional modeling of multi-component two phase flow in PEM fuel cathode, High Technology and Environmental science, First annual energy conference on International Center for Science, (2011).

Files

History

  • Receive Date: 11 October 2013
  • Revise Date: 06 July 2014
  • Accept Date: 17 September 2014

Share

How to cite

Statistics