Experimental performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cell with novel flow fields and numerical investigation of water-gas transport enhancement

The performance of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) depends on the water-gas transport capacity of flow fields. In this paper, the performance of the designed PEMFC with novel flow fields is tested by experimental methods. The experimental results show that the PEMFC with opposite sinusoidal wave flow field (OSWFF) and intercepted flow field (ICFF) are improved compared to the parallel flow field. The PEMFC with single-inlet OSWFF and ICFF show 19% and 11% performance enhancement at 2.0 A cm−2, respectively. A 3D numerical model for the validation experiment is established to analyze the water-gas transport characteristics of the flow field. The mass transfer performance of ICFF with 3D structural optimization is much better than that of OSWFF with 2D structural optimization, and the effective mass transfer coefficient and efficiency evaluation criterion are improved by 106% and 258%, respectively. The 7% improvement in oxygen uniformity in the dual-inlet mode compared to the single-inlet mode enhances the stability of the electrochemical reaction and the 28% improvement in velocity uniformity, which contributes to the uniform distribution and discharge of liquid water, which in turn enhances the PEMFC performance.