engleski

Designing heat exchanger with variable surface area for passive cooling of PEM fuel cell

PEM fuel cells are promising sources of renewable energy. They have wide range of application from vehicles to mobile phones. PEM fuel cell powered device has number of advantages as high efficiency, low or zero emission and simplicity in design. However, water and thermal management is the one of the main problems for the commercialization of the PEM fuel cells. Proper water and thermal management are also very important for efficient operation of PEM fuel cells. The purpose of this work was the improvement of performance of Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) Fuel Cells by ensuring 100% relative humidity along the cathode flow channel without external humidification. To achieve this, 3D numerical simulations of a single segmental PEM fuel cell were performed using commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software, ANSYS Fluent. The main objective of this research is (i) to develop a 3D model of the PEM fuel cell by using ANSYS Fluent ; (ii) to use the 3D model to find a temperature profile along the cathode channel that will ensure close to saturation conditions throughout the channel ; (iii) to design a passive cooled heat exchanger to obtain desired temperature profile.

Fuel cell; passive cooling; CFD modelling

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