Investigation on performance of full-scale proton exchange membrane fuel cell: Porous foam flow field with integrated bipolar plate/gas diffusion layer

Aiming at the problems of inconsistent local distribution of reactant gas and easy blockage of water in the traditional “bipolar plate (BP) + gas diffusion layer (GDL)” structure flow field (FF). A new type of porous foam flow field (PFFF) with integrated BP/GDL (taking the pore of decahedral structure as matrix) is proposed. Firstly, three-dimensional (3D) proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) saturation model is applied to analyze the influence of the availability of GDL components and different channel (CH) widths. GDL is essential for channel-rib (CR) FF because its elimination leads to the non-uniform mass distribution in fuel cell (FC). Secondly, by comparing CRFF and PFF with “BP + GDL” structure and PFFF with integrated BP/GDL, it is found that the limiting current density of PFF increases by 49.9 % compared with CRFF, and the mass transmission loss is reduced. Compared with PFF, the performance of PFFF is greatly enhanced, the pressure drop is moderate, and the amount of liquid water in CH is reduced by 39.1 %. Therefore, GDL component that eliminate PFF is extremely beneficial to improve FC efficiency and reduce stack volume. Finally, the output performance of FC under various porosities and pore number is explored.