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Effect of porosity gradient in cathode gas diffusion layer on electrochemical performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cells

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Abstract

Proton exchange nembrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are highly promising energy devices for future transportation and distributed power stations. The electrochemical performance of PEMFCs assembled with gas diffusion layer (GDL) of different porosity gradient distributions has been analyzed using the lattice Boltzmann method. A single-phase multi-component lattice Boltzmann model employing the active approach was developed to investigate the reactive gas flow within the GDL. Two types of GDLs with the same porosity, namely multilayer porosity gradient GDLs and linear porosity gradient GDLs, were generated to investigate the effect of the porosity gradient of the GDL on the electrochemical performance of PEMFC. The results show that the two types of porosity gradient GDL improve oxygen starvation problems and enhance water management, and that the GDLs with smaller porosity gradients can increase the mean current density. This paper develops the study of pore-scale analysis of PEMFC performance and can provide guidance for the design of GDL structures.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51779025 and No. 52001045), Science and Technology Innovation Foundation of Dalian, China (No. 2021 JJ11CG004). Particularly, thanks for Huixin Guo’s help.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Marine Engineering College, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, 116026, China

    Guogang Yang, Hao Wang, Fengmin Su, Shian Li, Guoling Zhang, Juncai Sun, Qiuwan Shen, Ziheng Jiang, Jiadong Liao & Pengyu Chen

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  1. Guogang Yang
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  2. Hao Wang
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  3. Fengmin Su
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  4. Shian Li
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  7. Qiuwan Shen
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  8. Ziheng Jiang
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  9. Jiadong Liao
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  10. Pengyu Chen
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Correspondence to Hao Wang.

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Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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Yang, G., Wang, H., Su, F. et al. Effect of porosity gradient in cathode gas diffusion layer on electrochemical performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cells. Korean J. Chem. Eng. 40, 1598–1605 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11814-023-1383-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11814-023-1383-5

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