Numerical investigation of enhanced mass transfer flow field on performance improvement of high‐temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cell

Abstract The enhanced mass transfer flow fields have been proven to be an effective measure to improve the cell performance of low‐temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells, yet little research has been done for high‐temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells (HT‐PEMFC). In this work, three types of cathode‐enhanced mass transfer flow fields (tapered, staggered‐blocked, and blocked) are designed. The effects of various flow fields on the reactant delivery, current density distribution uniformity, and net power output of HT‐PEMFC are quantitatively investigated and compared. It is found that the three enhanced mass transfer flow fields can effectively increase the performance of HT‐PEMFC by transforming the traditional diffusion into a combination of diffusion and forced convection. In the sight of the superior performance and lower flow resistance, the tapered flow field is thought to be the optimal candidate for HT‐PEMFC among the four flow fields, with a 12.21% net power increment and 5.32% current density distribution uniformity improvement at 1.4 A/cm2 compared to the conventional flow field. These results support further performance enhancements and applications of HT‐PEMFC.