Investigation of bio-inspired flow channel designs for bipolar plates in proton exchange membrane fuel cells
Investigation of bio-inspired flow channel designs for bipolar plates in proton exchange membrane fuel cells
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DOI：
10.1016/j.jpowsour.2008.11.123
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发表时间：
2009-03-01
影响因子：
9.2
通讯作者：
Guessous, Laila
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kloess, Jason R.;Wang, Xia;Guessous, Laila
质子交换膜(PEM)燃料电池的性能直接关系到双极板上流道的设计。可以通过改变通道的类型、大小或排列来获得功率增益。本文的目的是提出两种新的流道形式：叶型和肺型。这些以生物为灵感的设计结合了现有蛇形和交错图案的优点，并从自然界中发现的图案中获得灵感。采用数值模拟和实验测试相结合的方法，研究了两种新型流道模式对燃料电池性能的影响。从数值模拟中得出。研究发现，在叶型或肺型设计中，从进口到出口的压降比现有的蛇形或交错流型要小。结果表明，在新流道流型下，向气体扩散层的扩散更加均匀。组装了一个25厘米(2)的燃料电池，并对四种不同的流道进行了测试：叶、肺、蛇形和交错流道。得到了不同工作条件下的极化曲线。结果表明，在相同的运行条件下，叶型和肺型设计的燃料电池性能均优于对流流道设计。LEAFE和LONG的设计在峰值功率密度方面都比以前的设计有高达30%的改进。(C)2008爱思唯尔B.V.保留所有权利。
Proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell performance is directly related to the flow channel design on bipolar plates. Power gains can be found by varying the type, size, or arrangement of channels. The objective of this paper is to present two new flow channel patterns: a leaf design and a lung design. These bio-inspired designs combine the advantages of the existing serpentine and interdigitated patterns with inspiration from patterns found in nature. Both numerical simulation and experimental testing have been conducted to investigate the effects of two new flow channel patterns on fuel cell performance. From the numerical simulation. it was found that there is a lower pressure drop from the inlet to outlet in the leaf or lung design than the existing serpentine or interdigitated flow patterns. The flow diffusion to the gas diffusion layer was found be to more uniform for the new flow channel patterns. A 25 cm(2) fuel cell was assembled and tested for four different flow channels: leaf, lung, serpentine and interdigitated. The polarization curve has been obtained under different operating conditions. It was found that the fuel cell with either leaf or lung design performs better than the convectional flow channel design under the same operating conditions. Both the leaf and lung design show improvements over previous designs by up to 30% in peak power density. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.