• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.30 no.5 s.248
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• pp.489-495
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• 2006

Proton exchange membrane (PEM) should be sufficiently hydrated with a careful consideration of heat and water management. Water management has been a critical operation issue for better understanding the operation and optimizing the performance of a PEM fuel cell. The flooding on cathode side resulting from excess water can limit the fuel cell performance. In this study, the visual cell was designed and fabricated fur the visualization of liquid water droplet dynamics related to cathode flooding in flow channels. The experiment was carried out to observe the formation, growth and removal of water droplets using CCD imaging system. Effects of operating conditions such as cell temperature, air flow rate and air relative humidity on cathode flooding characteristics were mainly investigated. Based on this study, we can get the basic insight into flooding phenomena and its two-phase flow nature. It is expected that data obtained can be effectively used fur the setup and validation of two-phase PEM fuel cell models considering cathode flooding.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.288-297
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• 2009

A serpentine channel geometry often used in a fuel cell has a strong pressure gradient between adjacent channels in specific regions. The pressure gradient helps some amount of reactant gas penetrate through a gas diffusion layer(GDL). As a result, the overall serpentine flow structure is slightly different from the intention of a designer. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of serpentine flow structure on current density distribution. By using a commercial code, STAR-CD, a numerical simulation is performed to analyze the fuel cell with high aspect ratio of active area. To increase the accuracy of the numerical simulation, GDL permeabilities are measured with various compressive forces. Three-dimensional flow field and current density distribution are calculated. For the verification of the numerical simulation results, water condensation process in the cathode channel is observed through a transparent bipolar plate. The result of this study shows that the region of relatively low current density corresponds that of dropwise condensation in cathode channels.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.147-151
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• 2007

A serpentine channel geometry often used in a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell has a strong pressure gradient between adjacent channels in specific regions. The pressure gradient helps some amount of reactant gas penetrate through a gas diffusion layer(GDL). As a result, the overall serpentine flow structure is slightly different from intention of a designer. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of serpentine flow structure on current density distribution. By using a commercial code, STAR-CD, a numerical simulation is performed to analyze the fuel cell with relatively high aspect ratio active area. To increase the accuracy of the numerical simulation, GDL permeabilities are measured with various compression conditions. Three-dimensional flow field and current density distribution are calculated. For the verification of the numerical simulation results, water condensation process in the cathode channel is observed through a transparent bipolar plate. The result of this study shows that the region of relatively low current density corresponds to that of dropwise condensation in cathode channels.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.82.2-82.2
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• 2011

A channel design which is closely related with the mass transport overpotential is one of the most important procedures to optimize the whole fuel cell performance. In this study, three dimensional results of a numerical study for gas distribution in channels of a molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) unit cell for a 1kW class stack was presented. The relationship between the fuel and air distribution in the anode and cathode channels of the unit cell and the electric performance was observed. A charge balance model in the electrodes and the electrolyte coupled with a heat transfer model and a fluid flow model in the porous electrodes and the channels was solved for the mass, momentum, energy, species and charge conservation. The electronic and ionic charge balance in the anode and cathode current feeders, the electrolyte and GDEs were solved for using Ohm's law, while Butler-Volmer charge transfer kinetics described the charge transfer current density. The material transport was described by the diffusion and convection equations and Navier-Stokes equations govern the flow in the open channel. It was assumed that heat is produced by the electrochemical reactions and joule heating due to the electrical currents.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.476-483
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• 2012

Proper water management is crucial for the efficient operation of polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell. Especially, for automotive applications, A novel water management that can avoid both membrane dry-out and flooding is a very important task to achieve good performance and efficiency of PEM fuel cells. The aim of this study is to investigate the liquid water behavior on the gas diffusion layer (GDL) surface and in the cathode flow channel of a PEM unit fuel cell under flooding conditions. For this purpose, a transparent unit fuel cell is devised and fabricated by modifying the conventional PEM fuel cell design. The results of water droplet behavior under flooding conditions are mainly presented. The water distributions in the cathode flow channels with cell operating voltage are also compared and analyzed. Through this work, it is expected that the data obtained from this fundamental study can be effectively used to establish the basic water management strategy in terms of water removal from the flow channels in a PEM fuel cell stack.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.2250-2254
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• 2007

Comprehensive analytical models focusing on the anode water loss, the cathode flooding, water equilibrium, and water management strategy are developed for polymer electrolyte fuel cells. Analytical solutions presented in this study are compared with two-dimensional computational results and shows a good agreement in predicting those critical characteristics of water. General features of water concentration profile as a function of membrane thickness and current density are presented to illustrate the net effect of the back-diffusion of water from the cathode to anode and the water production by the cathode catalytic reaction on water transport over a fuel cell domain. As one of practical applications, the required humidity level of feed streams for full saturation at the channel outlets are investigated as a function of the physical operating condition. These analytical models can provide good understanding on the characteristic water

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.129-132
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• 2007

Advanced structure of metal-supported solid oxide fuel cells was devised to overcome sealing problem and mechanical instability in ceramic-supported solid oxide fuel cells. STS430 whose dimensions were 26mm diameter, 1mm thickness and 0.4mm channel width was used as metal support. Thin ceramic layer composed of anode(Ni/YSZ) and electrolyte(YSZ) was joined with STS430 metal support by using a cermet adhesive. $La_{0.8}Sr_{0.2}Co_{0.4}Mn_{0.6}O_{3}$ perovskite oxide was used as cathode material. It was noted that oxygen reduction reaction of cathode governed the overall cell performance from oxygen partial pressure dependance.

• 한국전기화학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.6-6
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• 2004

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.2 no.4 s.8
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• pp.78-85
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• 2006

Selection of flow channel in the separation plate of PEMFC is very important parameter to improve its performance and reduce parasite loss. Flow patterns in the channel have great influence on the transport of hydrogen and air and removal of water generated from electrochemical reaction in diffusion layer. In this study. fluid flow in flow channel with parallel and interdigitated patterns are simulated three dimensionally on full flow domain including anode and cathode channel together. The numerical results show that the fuel cell with interdigitated flow channel represents better performance than that with parallel flow channel due to its strong convective transport across the gas diffusion layer. But the pressure drop in parallel flow channel is much more than that in interdigitated flow channel. And effects of temperature and stoichiometric number on performance can be calculated and analyzed as well. Nomenclature.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.407-410
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• 2006

Selection of flow channel in the separation plate of PEMFC is very important parameter to improve its performance and reduce parasite loss. Flow patterns in the channel have great influence on the transport of hydrogen and all and water generated from electrochemical reaction in diffusion layer In this study, fluid flow in flow channel with parallel and interdigitated patterns are simulated three dimensionally on full flow domain including anode and cathode electrode together. The numerical results show that the fuel cell with interdigitated flow channel represents better performance than that with parallel flow channel due to its strong convective transport across the gas diffusion layer. But the pressure drop in parallel flow channel is much more than that in nterdigitated flow channel. The effect of temperature and stoichiometric number on performance can be calculated and analyzed as well.