Heat and mass transfer in a proton exchange membrane fuel cell with gradient distribution of platinum loading along flow channel direction
Yi Tong Li, Hang Guo, Fang Ye
Abstract
The distribution of oxygen concentration along the flow channel direction is uneven in a proton exchange membrane fuel cell. To make the full use of the higher oxygen concentration in the inlet area, the platinum loading can be designed to be gradient decreasing distribution from inlet to outlet. A two-dimensional, nonisothermal, two-phase agglomerate model is established to study the segment number and segment length effects on heat and species distributions and the cell performance. Results indicate that the gradient decreasing distribution of platinum loading can enhance the cell performance compared with the uniform distribution. Furthermore, increasing the segment number is unfavorable to the enhancement of cell performance but can make the temperature and oxygen concentration distributions of cathode catalyst layer more uniform. Increasing the segment length near the inlet area can make the cell performance improved, whereas it is unfavorable to the temperature distribution uniformity.