Numerical modeling of PEFC considering the effects of liquid water transport and phase change

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25820058
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Thermal engineering
• Research Institution: Yokohama National University
• Principal Investigator: ARAKI Takuto 横浜国立大学, 工学(系)研究科(研究院), 准教授 (90378258)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 固体高分子形燃料電池 / 熱物質輸送

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Proton Exchange Membrane Full Cell (PEMFC) is one of the most useful candidates of efficient and clean energy conversion devices. Understanding water transport inside PEMFC is very important to estimate and improve its cell performance, However, water transport is interacted with temperature, electrochemical reaction, phase change and heat and active material transport, and difficult to understand. In particular, the temperature gradient has the significant influence on water transport. Then, the two-dimensional unsteady model considering distributions of temperature, spices, reaction and phase change was developed to investigate how the temperature gradient effects on the water transport and the cell performance. The result indicated that the temperature gradient invoke heat pipe phenomena, and it could reduce flooding in the CL. Then, considering the temperature gradient and the other effect simultaneously is essential.

Free Research Field

熱工学