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Improvement the equation of polarization curve of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell at different channel geometry

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Abstract

The polarization curve of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell is an important parameter which is expressed by the change of voltage and current of it that indicates the performance of the cell. The voltage of the cell is a function of temperature that is expressed by the Nernst equation and the equation of voltage losses such as activation loss, ohmic loss and concentration loss. In this study a new correlation for polarization curve is obtained that it in addition to temperature, a new parameter is involved in it that shows the effect of the geometry of cross-section area of channels. For this purpose three PEM fuel cells with different channels geometry of rectangular, elliptical and triangular have constructed. The active area of each cell is 25 cm2 that its weight is 1300 g. The material of the gas diffusion layer is carbon clothes, the membrane is nafion 117 and the catalyst layer is a plane with 0.004 g/cm2 platinum. Also a test bench designed and constructed for testing the cell and a series of experiments are carried out to investigate the influence of the geometry of the cell on performance of the cell. The results show that when the geometry of channel is rectangular the performance of the cell is better than the triangular and elliptical channel.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by Renewable Energy Organization of Iran.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Mechanical and Energy Engineering, Shahid Beheshti University, A.C., Tehran, Iran

    I. Khazaee

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  1. I. Khazaee
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Correspondence to I. Khazaee.

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Khazaee, I. Improvement the equation of polarization curve of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell at different channel geometry. Heat Mass Transfer 51, 1681–1689 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00231-015-1531-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00231-015-1531-5

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