Numerical investigation of water and temperature distributions in a proton exchange membrane electrolysis cell

A three-dimensional, non-isothermal, two-phase model for a PEM water electrolysis cell(PEMEC) is established in this study.An effective connection between two-phase transport and performance in the PEMECs is built through coupling the liquid water saturation and temperature in the charge conservation equation. The distributions of liquid water and temperature with different operating(voltage, temperature, inlet velocity) and physical(contact angle, and porosity of anode gas diffusion layer) parameters are examined and discussed in detail. The results show that the water and temperature distributions, which are affected by the operating and physical parameters, have a combined effect on the cell performance. The effects of various parameters on the PEMEC are of interaction and restricted mutually. As the voltage increases, the priority factor caused by the change of inlet water velocity changes from the liquid water saturation increase to the temperature drop in the anode catalyst layer. While the priority influence factor caused by the contact angle and porosity of anode gas diffusion layer is the liquid water saturation. Decreasing the contact angle or/and increasing the porosity can improve the PEMEC performance especially at the high voltage. The results can provide a better understanding of the effect of heat and mass transfer and the foundation for optimization design.

Three-dimensional multiphase modeling of a proton exchange membrane electrolysis cell with a new interdigitated-jet hole flow field

The flow field structure on the bipolar plate significantly affects the performance of the proton exchange membrane electrolysis cell(PEMEC).This paper proposes a new interdigitated-jet hole flow field(JHFF)design to improve the uniformities of liquid saturation,temperature,and current density distributions.The common single-path serpentine flow field(SSFF)and interdigitated flow field(IFF)are used as comparative references to constitute three PEMEC cases.An advanced numerical model has been established to simulate the performance of the PEMEC using CFD software.The results show that,due to the perpendicular mainstream and the pressure difference,the JHFF enhances the mass and heat transfer inside the porous electrode by introducing strong forced convection,which promotes gas removal underneath the ribs and cooling.Compared with the comparative flow fields,the uniformities of liquid saturation,temperature,and current density distributions by using the JHFF at the anode side are increased by 19.1%,53.2%,and 40.4%,respectively.Further,mainly owing to the largest conductive area,the PEMEC with the JHFF has superior polarization performance,which is 8.05%higher than the PEMEC with the SSFF.