Modelling the Effects of using Gas Diffusion Layers with Patterned Wettability for Advanced Water Management in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells

TL;DR

This paper develops a comprehensive model of PEM fuel cells incorporating patterned GDLs to improve water management, validated against experimental data, and demonstrates that patterned GDLs enhance oxygen diffusion by controlling water distribution.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed macrohomogeneous two-phase model for PEMFCs with patterned GDLs, combining mechanical, flow, and electrochemical aspects, and validates it with neutron radiography data.

Findings

Patterned GDLs effectively control water distribution.

Model predictions align well with experimental data.

Patterned GDLs increase local oxygen diffusivity.

Abstract

We present a macrohomogeneous two-phase model of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). The model takes into account the mechanical compression of the gas diffusion layer (GDL), the two-phase flow of water, the transport of the gas species and the electrochemical reaction of the reactant gases. The model was used to simulate the behavior of a PEMFC with a patterned GDL. The results of the reduced model, which considers only the mechanical compression and the two-phase flow, are compared to the experimental ex-situ imbibition data obtained by neutron radiography imaging. The results are in good agreement. Additionally, by using all model features, a simulation of an operating fuel cell has been performed to study the intricate couplings in an operating fuel cell and to examine the patterned GDL effects. The model confirms that the patterned GDL design liberates the pre-defined domains from liquid water and thus locally increases the oxygen diffusivity.