PEM fuel cells performance improvements by CFD

Full text: The system of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC) is considered as the leading candidate to replace the internal combustion engine in the 21st century, as well as being a key technology for small stationary power stations, transportation and portable systems. Since 2001, the National R and D Institute for Cryogenics and Isotopic Technologies-ICIT Rm. Valcea has developed several research projects in the field of hydrogen production, storage and fuel cells. Due to the interdisciplinary team, ICIT Rm. Valcea has expertise both in the fields of conductive and stable polymers, chemical and electrochemical synthesis and polymeric membranes, catalysts chemical synthesis and also fluid dynamics computation. The system behavior in different working regimes and the optimization of the fuel cells stack configuration (geometric and thermodynamic) in order to increase the power production for the future applications, can be done using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). CFD is an indispensable tool in identifying, understanding, predicting, controlling and optimizing various transport and physico (electro)-chemical processes that occur on different length scales in fuel cells. By developing a comprehensive and detailed mathematical model for studying electrochemical, thermodynamics and fluid dynamics relations that occur in a PEM fuel cell, and solving numerically this model using a CFD software one can obtain a powerful modeling tool that can be viewed like an important alternatives for fuel cell optimization process and for reduction of exploitation/experimentation costs. The collaboration between the numerical modelers and experimenters and between academics and industrialists are required in order to speed up the development of the CFD modeling capabilities and the fuel cell technology as a whole. We can anticipate that with the continuous development of more detailed fuel cell sub-models, advanced CFD modeling techniques with their flexibility, efficiency and accuracy will become one of the most cost effective ways of assisting in the development of new fuel cell technologies. Fuel cell technology presents huge economical and environmental potential in the next generation of power systems, from small portable fuel cells to large residential power plants. In the development of this new technology, detailed and accurate CFD modeling can effectively guide the improvements in fuel cell design so that optimal flow and energy management within fuel cells may be achieved. A comprehensive fuel cell modeling capability, which accounts for the detailed processes of the chemistry, electrochemistry, electric transport, heat generation and material stresses in the fuel cell, as well as the validated fuel cell modeling methodology, has not yet been fully established, so more work is required. (authors)