Effects of baffle position in serpentine flow channel on the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cells

This study used a three-dimensional numerical model of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell with five types of channels:a smooth channel(Case 1);eight rectangular baffles were arranged in the upstream(Case 2),midstream(Case 3),downstream(Case 4),and the entire cathode flow channel(Case 5)to study the effects of baffle position on mass transport,power density,net power,etc.Moreover,the effects of back pressure and humidity on the voltage were investigated.Results showed that compared to smooth channels,the oxygen and water transport facilitation at the diffusion layer-channel interface were added 11.53%-20.60%and 7.81%-9.80%at 1.68 A·cm^(-2)by adding baffles.The closer the baffles were to upstream,the higher the total oxygen flux,but the lower the flux uniformity the worse the water removal.The oxygen flux of upstream baffles was 8.14%higher than that of downstream baffles,but oxygen flux uniformity decreased by 18.96%at 1.68 A·cm^(-2).The order of water removal and voltage improvement was Case 4>Case 5>Case 3>Case 2>Case 1.Net power of Case 4 was 9.87%higher than that of the smooth channel.To the Case 4,when the cell worked under low back pressure or high humidity,the voltage increments were higher.The potential increment for the back pressure of 0 atm was 0.9%higher than that of 2 atm(1 atm=101.325 kPa).The potential increment for the humidity of 100%was 7.89%higher than that of 50%.

CFD Analysis of Spiral Flow Fields in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells

Proton exchange membrane fuel cells(PEMFCs)are largely used in various applications because of their pollution-free products and high energy conversion efficiency.In order to improve the related design,in the present work a new spiral flow field with a bypass is proposed.The reaction gas enters the flow field in the central path and diffuses in two directions through the flow channel and the bypass.The bypasses are arranged incrementally.The number of bypasses and the cross-section size of the bypasses are varied parametrically while a single-cell model of the PEMFC is used.The influence of the concentration of liquid water and oxygen in the cell on the performance of different flow fields is determined by means of Computational fluid dynamics(COMSOL Multiphysics software).Results show that when the bypass number is 48 and its cross-sectional area is 0.5 mm^(2),the cell exhibits the best performances.

Pore-Scale Investigation of Coupled Two-Phase and Reactive Transport in the Cathode Electrode of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells

A three-dimensional multicomponent multiphase lattice Boltzmann model(LBM)is established to model the coupled two-phase and reactive transport phenomena in the cathode electrode of proton exchange membrane fuel cells.The gas diff usion layer(GDL)and microporous layer(MPL)are stochastically reconstructed with the inside dynamic distribution of oxygen and liquid water resolved,and the catalyst layer is simplifi ed as a superthin layer to address the electrochemical reaction,which provides a clear description of the fl ooding eff ect on mass transport and performance.Diff erent kinds of electrodes are reconstructed to determine the optimum porosity and structure design of the GDL and MPL by comparing the transport resistance and per-formance under the fl ooding condition.The simulation results show that gradient porosity GDL helps to increase the reactive area and average concentration under fl ooding.The presence of the MPL ensures the oxygen transport space and reaction area because liquid water cannot transport through micropores.Moreover,the MPL helps in the uniform distribution of oxygen for an effi cient in-plane transport capacity.Crack and perforation structures can accelerate the water transport in the assembly.The systematic perforation design yields the best performance under fl ooding by separating the transport of liquid water and oxygen.

Graphite-polypyrrole coated 316L stainless steel as bipolar plates for proton exchange membrane fuel cells

316L stainless steel（SS 316L） is quite attractive as bipolar plates in proton exchange membrane fuel cells（PEMFC）.In this study,graphite-polypyrrole was coated on SS 316L by the method of cyclic voltammetry.The surface morphology and chemical composition of the graphite-polypyrrole composite coating were investigated by scanning electron microscopy（SEM） and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy（XPS）.A simulated working environment of PEMFC was applied for testing the corrosion properties of graphite-polypyrrole coated SS 316L.The current densities in the simulated PEMFC anode and cathode conditions are around 3×10-9 and 9×10-5 A·cm-2,respectively.In addition,the interfacial contact resistance（ICR） was also investigated.The ICR value of graphite-polypyrrole coated SS 316L is much lower than that of bare SS 316L.Therefore,graphite-polypyrrole coated SS 316L indicates a great potential for the application in PEMFC.

Pt/WO_3/C nanocomposite with parallel WO_3 nanorods as cathode catalyst for proton exchange membrane fuel cells

Pt/WO3/C nanocomposites with parallel WO3 nanorods were synthesized and applied as the cathode catalyst for proton exchange membrane fuel cells （PEMFCs）. Electrochemical results and single cell tests show that an enhanced activity for the oxygen reduction reaction （ORR） is obtained for the Pt/WO3/C catalyst compared with Pt/C. The higher catalytic activity might be ascribed to the improved Pt dispersion with smaller particle sizes. The Pt/WO3/C catalyst also exhibits a good electrochemical stability under potential cycling. Thus, the Pt/WO3/C catalyst can be used as a potential PEMFC cathode catalyst.

Recent advances in phosphoric acid-based membranes for high-temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells

High-temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells(HT-PEMFCs)are pursued worldwide as efficient energy conversion devices.Great efforts have been made in the area of designing and developing phosphoric acid(PA)-based proton exchange membrane(PEM)of HT-PEMFCs.This review focuses on recent advances in the limitations of acid-based PEM(acid leaching,oxidative degradation,and mechanical degradation)and the approaches mitigating the membrane degradation.Preparing multilayer or polymers with continuous network,adding hygroscopic inorganic materials,and introducing PA doping sites or covalent interactions with PA can effectively reduce acid leaching.Membrane oxidative degradation can be alleviated by synthesizing crosslinked or branched polymers,and introducing antioxidative groups or highly oxidative stable materials.Crosslinking to get a compact structure,blending with stable polymers and inorganic materials,preparing polymer with high molecular weight,and fabricating the polymer with PA doping sites away from backbones,are recommended to improve the membrane mechanical strength.Also,by comparing the running hours and decay rate,three current approaches,1.crosslinking via thermally curing or polymeric crosslinker,2.incorporating hygroscopic inorganic materials,3.increasing membrane layers or introducing strong basic groups and electron-withdrawing groups,have been concluded to be promising approaches to improve the durability of HT-PEMFCs.The overall aim of this review is to explore the existing degradation challenges and opportunities to serve as a solid basis for the deployment in the fuel cell market.

In situ grown nanoscale platinum on carbon powder as catalyst layer in proton exchange membrane fuel cells(PEMFCs)

An extensive study has been conducted on the proton exchange membrane fuel cells （PEMFCs） with reducing Pt loading. This is commonly achieved by developing methods to increase the utilization of the platinum in the catalyst layer of the electrodes. In this paper, a novel process of the catalyst layers was introduced and investigated. A mixture of carbon powder and Nafion solution was sprayed on the glassy carbon electrode （GCE） to form a thin carbon layer. Then Pt particles were deposited on the surface by reducing hexachloroplatinic （IV） acid hexahydrate with methanoic acid. SEM images showed a continuous Pt gradient profile among the thickness direction of the catalytic layer by the novel method. The Pt nanowires grown are in the size of 3 nm （diameter） x l0 nm （length） by high solution TEM image. The novel catalyst layer was characterized by cyclic voltammetry （CV） and scanning electron microscope （SEM） as compared with commercial Pt/C black and Pt catalyst layer obtained from sputtering. The results showed that the platinum nanoparticles deposited on the carbon powder were highly utilized as they directly faced the gas diffusion layer and offered easy access to reactants （oxygen or hydrogen）.

Water Distribution and Removal along the Flow Channel in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells

Distribution expressions of total gas pressure and partial water vapor pressure along the channel direction were established based on lumped model by analyzing pressure loss in the channel and gas diffusion in the layer. The mechanism of droplet formation in the flow channel was also analyzed. Effects of the relative humidity, working temperature and stoichiometry on liquid water formation were discussed in detail. Moreover, the force equilibrium equation of the droplet in the flow channel was deduced, and the critical flow velocity for the water droplet removal was also addressed. The experimental results show that the threshold position of the liquid droplet is far from the inlet with the increase of temperature, and it decreases with the increase of the inlet total pressure. The critical flow velocity decreases with the increase of the radius and the working pressure.

Multiscale structural engineering of atomically dispersed FeN4 electrocatalyst for proton exchange membrane fuel cells

Atomically dispersed iron-nitrogen-carbon(Fe-N-C) catalysts have emerged as the most promising alternative to the expensive Pt-based catalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction(ORR) in proton exchange membrane fuel cells(PEMFCs),however suffer from low site density of active Fe-N4 moiety and limited mass transport during the catalytic reaction.To address these challenges,we report a three-dimensional(3D) metal-organic frameworks(MOF)-derived Fe-N-C single-atom catalyst.In this well-designed Fe-N-C catalyst,the micro-scale interconnected skeleton,the nano-scale ordered pores and the atomic-scale abundant carbon edge defects inside the skeleton significantly enhance the site density of active Fe-N4 moiety,thus improving the Fe utilization in the final catalyst.Moreover,the combination of the above mentioned micro-and nano-scale structures greatly facilitates the mass transport in the 3D Fe-N-C catalyst.Therefore,the multiscale engineered Fe-N-C single-atom catalyst achieves excellent ORR performance under acidic condition and affords a significantly enhanced current density and power density in PEMFC.Our findings may open new opportunities for the rational design of FeN-C catalysts through multiscale structural engineering.

Patterned catalyst layer boosts the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cells by optimizing water management

Mass transport is crucial to the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cells,especially at high current densities.Generally,the oxygen and the generated water share same transmission medium but move towards opposite direction,which leads to serious mass transfer problems.Herein,a series of patterned catalyst layer were prepared with a simple one-step impressing method using nylon sieves as templates.With grooves 100μm in width and 8μm in depth on the surface of cathode catalyst layer,the maximum power density of fuel cell increases by 10%without any additional durability loss while maintaining a similar electrochemical surface area.The concentration contours calculated by finite element analysis reveal that the grooves built on the surface of catalyst layer serve to accumulate the water nearby while oxygen tends to transfer through relatively convex region,which results from capillary pressure difference caused by the pore structure difference between the two regions.The separation of oxidant gas and generated water avoids mass confliction thus boosts mass transport efficiency.

Ti/(Ti,Cr)N/CrN multilayer coated 316L stainless steel by arc ion plating as bipolar plates for proton exchange membrane fuel cells

Arc ion plating (AIP) is applied to form Ti/(Ti,Cr)N/CrN multilayer coating on the surface of 316L stainless steel (SS316L) as bipolar plates for proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). The characterizations of the coating are analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Interfacial contact resistance (ICR) between the coated sample and carbon paper is 4.9 m Omega cm(2) under 150 N/cm(2), which is much lower than that of the SS316L substrate. Potentiodynamic and potentiostatic tests are performed in the simulated PEMFC working conditions to investigate the corrosion behaviors of the coated sample. Superior anticorrosion performance is observed for the coated sample, whose corrosion current density is 0.12 mu A/cm(2). Surface morphology results after corrosion tests indicate that the substrate is well protected by the multilayer coating. Performances of the single cell with the multilayer coated SS316L bipolar plate are improved significantly compared with that of the cell with the uncoated SS316L bipolar plate, presenting a great potential for PEMFC application. (C) 2016 Science Press and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. and Science Press. All rights reserved.

Process and challenges of stainless steel based bipolar plates for proton exchange membrane fuel cells

Proton exchange membrane fuel cell(PEMFC)powered automobiles have been recognized to be the ultimate solution to replace traditional fuel automobiles because of their advantages of PEMFCs such as no pollution,low temperature start-up,high energy density,and low noise.As one of the core components,the bipolar plates(BPs)play an important role in the PEMFC stack.Traditional graphite BPs and composite BPs have been criticized for their shortcomings such as low strength,high brittleness,and high processing cost.In contrast,stainless steel BPs(SSBPs)have recently attracted much attention of domestic and foreign researchers because of their excellent comprehensive performance,low cost,and diverse options for automobile applications.However,the SSBPs are prone to corrosion and passivation in the PEMFC working environment,which lead to reduced output power or premature failure.This review is aimed to summarize the corrosion and passivation mechanisms,characterizations and evaluation,and the surface modification technologies in the current SSBPs research.The non-coating and coating technical routes of SSBPs are demonstrated,such as substrate component regulation,thermal nitriding,electroplating,ion plating,chemical vapor deposition,and physical vapor deposition,etc.Alternative coating materials for SSBPs are metal coatings,metal nitride coatings,conductive polymer coatings,and polymer/carbon coatings,etc.Both the surface modification technologies can solve the corrosion resistance problem of stainless steel without affecting the contact resistance,however still facing restraints such as long-time stability,feasibility of low-cost,and mass production process.This paper is believed to enrich the knowledge of high-performance and long-life BPs applied for PEMFC automobiles.

Overcoming the Electrode Challenges of High‑Temperature Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells

Proton exchange membrane fuel cells(PEMFCs)are becoming a major part of a greener and more sustainable future.However,the costs of high-purity hydrogen and noble metal catalysts alongside the complexity of the PEMFC system severely hamper their commercialization.Operating PEMFCs at high temperatures(HT-PEMFCs,above 120℃)brings several advantages,such as increased tolerance to contaminants,more affordable catalysts,and operations without liquid water,hence considerably simplifying the system.While recent progresses in proton exchange mem-branes for HT-PEMFCs have made this technology more viable,the HT-PEMFC viscous acid electrolyte lowers the active site utilization by unevenly diffusing into the catalyst layer while it acutely poisons the catalytic sites.In recent years,the synthesis of platinum group metal(PGM)and PGM-free catalysts with higher acid tolerance and phosphate-promoted oxygen reduction reaction,in conjunction with the design of catalyst layers with improved acid distribution and more triple-phase boundaries,has provided great opportunities for more efficient HT-PEMFCs.The progress in these two interconnected fields is reviewed here,with recommendations for the most promising routes worthy of further investigation.Using these approaches,the performance and durability of HT-PEMFCs will be significantly improved.

Secondary reduction strategy synthesis of Pt-Co nanoparticle catalysts towards boosting the activity of proton exchange membrane fuel cells

Based on the volcanic relationship between catalytic activity and key adsorption energies,Pt-Co alloy materials have been widely studied as cathode oxygen reduction reaction(ORR)catalysts in proton exchange membrane fuel cells(PEMFCs)due to their higher active surface area and adjustable D-band energy levels compared to Pt/C.However,how to balance the alloying degree and ORR performance of Pt-Co catalyst remains a great challenge.Herein,we first synthesized a well-dispersed Pt/Co/C precursor by using a mild dimethylamine borane(DMAB)as the reducing agent.The precursor was calcined at high temperature under H_(2)/Ar mixed gas by a secondary reduction strategy to obtain an ordered Pt_(3)Co intermetallic compound nanoparticle catalyst with a high degree of alloying.The optimization of elec-tronic structure due to Pt-Co alloying and the strong metal-carrier interaction ensure the high kinetic activity of the cell membrane electrode.Additionally,the high degree of graphitization increases the electrical conductivity during the reaction.As a result,the activity and stability of the catalyst were significantly improved,with a half-wave potential as high as 0.87 V,which decreased by only 20 mV after 10000 potential cycles.Single-cell tests further validate the high intrinsic activity of the ordered Pt_(3)Co catalyst with mass activity up to 0.67 A mg_(pt)^(-1),exceeding the United States Department of Energy(US DOE)standard(0.44 A mg_(pt)^(-1)),and a rated power of 5.93 W mg_(pt)^(-1).

Exploration of the oxygen transport behavior in non-precious metal catalyst-based cathode catalyst layer for proton exchange membrane fuel cells

High cost has undoubtedly become the biggest obstacle to the commercialization of proton exchange membrane fuel cells(PEMFCs),in which Pt-based catalysts employed in the cathodic catalyst layer(CCL)account for the major portion of the cost.Although nonprecious metal catalysts(NPMCs)show appreciable activity and stability in the oxygen reduction reaction(ORR),the performance of fuel cells based on NPMCs remains unsatisfactory compared to those using Pt-based CCL.Therefore,most studies on NPMC-based fuel cells focus on developing highly active catalysts rather than facilitating oxygen transport.In this work,the oxygen transport behavior in CCLs based on highly active Fe-N-C catalysts is comprehensively explored through the elaborate design of two types of membrane electrode structures,one containing low-Pt-based CCL and NPMCbased dummy catalyst layer(DCL)and the other containing only the NPMC-based CCL.Using Zn-N-C based DCLs of different thickness,the bulk oxygen transport resistance at the unit thickness in NPMC-based CCL was quantified via the limiting current method combined with linear fitting analysis.Then,the local and bulk resistances in NPMC-based CCLs were quantified via the limiting current method and scanning electron microscopy,respectively.Results show that the ratios of local and bulk oxygen transport resistances in NPMCbased CCL are 80%and 20%,respectively,and that an enhancement of local oxygen transport is critical to greatly improve the performance of NPMC-based PEMFCs.Furthermore,the activity of active sites per unit in NPMCbased CCLs was determined to be lower than that in the Pt-based CCL,thus explaining worse cell performance of NPMC-based membrane electrode assemblys(MEAs).It is believed that the development of NPMC-based PEMFCs should proceed not only through the design of catalysts with higher activity but also through the improvement of oxygen transport in the CCL.

Performance Degradation Prediction of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Based on CEEMDAN-KPCA and DA-GRU Networks

In order to improve the performance degradation prediction accuracy of proton exchange membrane fuel cell(PEMFC),a fusion prediction method(CKDG)based on adaptive noise complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition(CEEMDAN),kernel principal component analysis(KPCA)and dual attention mechanism gated recurrent unit neural network(DA-GRU)was proposed.CEEMDAN and KPCA were used to extract the input feature data sequence,reduce the influence of random factors,and capture essential feature components to reduce the model complexity.The DA-GRU network helps to learn the feature mapping relationship of data in long time series and predict the changing trend of performance degradation data more accurately.The actual aging experimental data verify the performance of the CKDG method.The results show that under the steady-state condition of 20%training data prediction,the CKDA method can reduce the root mean square error(RMSE)by 52.7%and 34.6%,respectively,compared with the traditional LSTM and GRU neural networks.Compared with the simple DA-GRU network,RMSE is reduced by 15%,and the degree of over-fitting is reduced,which has higher accuracy.It also shows excellent prediction performance under the dynamic condition data set and has good universality.

High-consistency proton exchange membrane fuel cells enabled by oxygen-electron mixed-pathway electrodes via digitalization design

Proton exchange membrane(PEM)fuel cell has been regarded as a promising approach to the decarbonization and diversification of energy sources.In recent years,durability and cost issues of PEM fuel cells are increasingly significant with the rapid increase of power density.However,the failure to maintain the cell consistency,as one major cause of the above issue,has attracted little attention.Therefore,this study intends to figure out the underlying cause of cell inconsistency and provide solutions to it from the perspective of multi-physics transport coupled with electrochemical reactions.The PEM fuel cells with electrodes under two compression modes are firstly discussed to fully explain the relationship of cell performance and consistency to electrode structure and multi-physics transport.The result indicates that one main cause of cell inconsistency is the intrinsic conflict between the separated transport and cooperated consumption of oxygen and electron throughout the active area.Then,a mixed-pathway electrode design is proposed to reduce the cell inconsistency by enhancing the mixed transport of oxygen and electron in the electrode.It is found that the mixing of pathways in electrodes at under-rib region is more effective than that at the under-channel region,and can achieve an up to 40%reduction of the cell inconsistency with little(3.3%)sacrificed performance.In addition,all the investigations are implemented based on a self-developed digitalization platform that reconstructs the complex physical–chemical system of PEM fuel cells.The fully observable physical information of the digitalized cells provides strong support to the related analysis.

Study on the growth of platinum nanowires as cathode catalysts in proton exchange membrane fuel cells

The platinum nanowires have been verified to be a promising catalyst to promote the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cells.In this paper,accurately controlled growth of nanowires in a carbon matrix is achieved for reducing Pt loading.The effects of formic acid concentration and reaction temperature on the morphology and size of the Pt nanowires,as well as their electrochemical performances in a single cell,are investigated.The results showed that the increase in the formic acid concentration results in a volcano trend with the length of Pt nanowires.With increasing reduction temperature,the diameter of Pt nanowires increases while Pt particles evolve from one-dimensional to zero-dimensional up to 40°C.A mechanism of the Pt nanowires growth is proposed.The optimized Pt nanowires electrode exhibits a power density(based on electrochemical active surface area)79%higher than conventional Pt/C one.The control strategy obtained contributes to the design and control of novel nanostructures in nano-synthesis and catalyst applications.

Boosting the optimization of membrane electrode assembly in proton exchange membrane fuel cells guided by explainable artificial intelligence

The utilization of environmentally friendly hydrogen energy requires proton exchange membrane fuel cell de-vices that offer high power output while remaining affordable.However,the current optimization of their key component,i.e.,the membrane electrode assembly,is still based on intuition-guided,inefficient trial-and-error cycles due to its complexity.Hence,we introduce an innovative,explainable artificial intelligence(AI)tool trained as a reliable assistant for a variable analysis and optimum-value prediction.Among the 8 algorithms considered,the surrogate model built with an artificial neural network achieves high replaceability in the experimentally validated multiphysics simulation(R^(2)=0.99845)and a much lower computational cost.For interpretation,partial dependence plots and the Shapley value method are applied to black-box models to intelligently simulate the impact of each parameter on performance.These methods show that a tradeoff existed in the catalyst layer thickness.The AI-guided optimization suggestions regarding catalyst loading and the ion-omer content are fully supported by the experimental results,and the final product achieves 3.2 times the Pt utilization of commercial products with a time cost orders of magnitude smaller.

Multi-physics-resolved digital twin of proton exchange membrane fuel cells with a data-driven surrogate model

The development of multi-physics-resolved digital twins of proton exchange membrane fuel cells(PEMFCs)is sig-nificant for the advancement of this technology.Here,to solve this scientific issue,a surrogate modelling method that combines a state-of-the-art three-dimensional PEMFC physical model and data-driven model is proposed.The surrogate modelling prediction results demonstrate that the test-set relative root mean square errors(rRMSEs)of the multi-physics fields range from 3.88%to 24.80%and can mirror the multi-physics field distribution charac-teristics well.In summary,for multi-physics field prediction,the data-driven surrogate model has a comparable accuracy to the comprehensive 3D physical model;however,it considerably reduces the cost of computation and time and achieves the efficient multi-physics-resolved digital-twin.Two model-based designs based on the as-developed digital twin framework,i.e.the PEMFC healthy operation envelope and the PEMFC state map,are demonstrated.This study highlights the potential of combining data-driven approaches and comprehensive physical models to develop the digital twin of complex systems,such as PEMFCs.