TY - JOUR
T1 - Development of simulated gas diffusion layer of polymer electrolyte fuel cells and evaluation of its structure
AU - Inoue, Gen
AU - Yoshimoto, Takashi
AU - Matsukuma, Yosuke
AU - Minemoto, Masaki
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by the research and development of polymer electrolyte fuel cell from the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), Japan.
PY - 2008/1/3
Y1 - 2008/1/3
N2 - In polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC), it is important to understand the behavior of liquid water in gas diffusion layer (GDL) which is one of the constructional elements so as to improve the output performance and the durability. As this behavior of liquid water is attributed to not only the hydrophilicity but also inhomogeneous structure, it is needed to examine in consideration of an actual GDL structure. In this study, as the basic examination of two-phase flow analysis in an actual GDL, a simulated GDL was made by numerical analysis considering the fiber placement. Furthermore, the prediction methods for pore size distribution, permeability and tortuosity of this simulated GDL were developed with the numerical analysis. These parameters of flow and mass transfer were compared with other studies, and the validity of this simulated GDL was confirmed. In addition, effective diffusion coefficient was calculated from tortuosity in simulated GDL, and PEFC output performance was evaluated by a simple model. Moreover, the optimal GDL was examined in consideration of the effect of porosity and fiber diameter at the fiber level.
AB - In polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC), it is important to understand the behavior of liquid water in gas diffusion layer (GDL) which is one of the constructional elements so as to improve the output performance and the durability. As this behavior of liquid water is attributed to not only the hydrophilicity but also inhomogeneous structure, it is needed to examine in consideration of an actual GDL structure. In this study, as the basic examination of two-phase flow analysis in an actual GDL, a simulated GDL was made by numerical analysis considering the fiber placement. Furthermore, the prediction methods for pore size distribution, permeability and tortuosity of this simulated GDL were developed with the numerical analysis. These parameters of flow and mass transfer were compared with other studies, and the validity of this simulated GDL was confirmed. In addition, effective diffusion coefficient was calculated from tortuosity in simulated GDL, and PEFC output performance was evaluated by a simple model. Moreover, the optimal GDL was examined in consideration of the effect of porosity and fiber diameter at the fiber level.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2007.09.014
DO - 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2007.09.014
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:36348931092
VL - 175
SP - 145
EP - 158
JO - Journal of Power Sources
JF - Journal of Power Sources
SN - 0378-7753
IS - 1
ER -
