SBIR Phase I: A Simulation Tool for the Prediction of Performance of Liquid-Feed Direct Methanol Fuel Cells

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目专注于基于计算流体动力学(CFD)技术的商业软件的开发，以预测液体进料直接甲醇燃料电池(DMFC)的性能。虽然燃料电池的计算模型在固体氧化物燃料电池(SOFC)和氢-空气质子交换膜燃料电池(PEMFC)领域得到了广泛的应用，但在直接甲醇燃料电池领域却受到了限制。这在一定程度上可以归因于这样一个事实，即在DMFC中，由于液体燃料产生气态产物，建模需要仔细考虑两相现象，这在数值上是具有挑战性的。开发并投放了用于预测充气PEMFC和SOFC性能的综合仿真工具。为了抓住快速增长的DMFC市场，该项目建议扩展模拟工具，以解决液体进料DMFC建模的特定问题。该模型将根据文献中提供的实验数据进行验证。液体进料直接甲醇燃料电池已经成为人们关注的焦点，特别是在便携式电源应用中，最优的空间利用率至关重要。拟议的研究将产生一种商业质量的预测工具，可广泛用于DMFC的设计和优化，此外还可提供对此类系统中发生的传输和电化学的更好了解。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project focuses on the development of commercial software, based on computational fluid dynamic (CFD) techniques, to predict performance of liquid-feed direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC). While computational modeling of fuel cells has been widespread in the solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) and hydrogen-air proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) areas, it has been limited in the area of direct methanol fuel cell. This can be attributed, in part, to the fact that in DMFC, since the liquid fuel produces gaseous products, the modeling necessitates careful consideration of two-phase phenomena, which is numerically challenging. A comprehensive simulation tool for the prediction of performance of gas-feed PEMFC and SOFC have been developed and marketed. In order to capture the rapidly growing DMFC market, this project proposes to extend the simulation tool to address issues specific to liquid-feed DMFC modeling. The model will be validated against experimental data available from the literature. Liquid-feed Direct Methanol Fuel Cells have become the center of attention, especially for portable power applications where optimal space utilization is critical. The proposed research will produce a commercial-quality predictive tool, which could be utilized extensively for design and optimization of DMFCs, in addition to providing better understanding of the transport and electrochemistry that occur in such systems.