Bipolar Plate Design And Optimization Based On Novel Biometric Method In PEMFC

Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is the most promising source of energy in the 21st century. It is widespread concern with no pollution, high efficiency energy conversion, so it is very necessary to study it. Because of the complex internal working environment, combined with experimental constraints, it is very important to research it with the method of numerical simulation.At present, the conventional flow channel of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell has too large pressure drop in the export and import flow, reaction gas utilization rate is not too high, liquid water can not easily be discharged, and the no uniformity distribution of current density, so the development of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell is very slow, especially in the research of flow channel and improve the PEMFC performance. In this paper, a group of new bionic flow channel has been designed, with the Prototype of branch vein, and Murray'Law. The simulation and optimization, such as heat transfer, mass transfer and electrochemical reaction, has been through the PEM module in the fluid dynamics software of Fluent.Firstly, from the point of evolution, the existence of the species must have its advantages, so the 3D model has been established with the simplification of branch vein. The Y-shape flow channel considers the proton exchange membrane fuel cell's coupling, including internal heat-flow-electricity. Secondly, the bipolar plates, flow channel, anode and cathode diffusion layer, anode catalyst layer and proton exchange membrane has been included in the simulation region. Thirdly, bio-inspired channelâ…£has obtained the best performance by compared with five different bio-inspired channels. In the five different flow channel, molar concentrations of hydrogen, molar concentrations of oxygen, molar concentration of water, temperature, pressure, flow rate and current density distribution have been compared. Then, operating parameters, such as humidity, temperature, pressure and the excess coefficient of variation, has been used to optimize the flow field. The optimal external operating conditions have been got in bio-inspired channelâ…£. Lastly, two new channel flows are designed based on the optimal bio-inspired channel and optimal external operating conditions. The establishments of new flow channels and optimization have been completed by computer simulation. By the exploration of flow field, it is provided some help to the new proton exchange membrane fuel cell flow field.