The Impact of Cooling Channels and Heat Spreaders on the Performance of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC)

Keoagile Mogorosi, M. Tunde Oladiran, Edward Rakgati

Abstract


Investigation of the operational behavior of fuel cells is required to assess their overall performance and dynamic stability. This research paper describes the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in investigating the effect of incorporating a separate adjacent cooling channel and heat spreader in a fuel cell. The objective of the study was to find the effect of adding coolant channel and heat spreader to the fuel cell. This model was run using different variables, namely pressure, voltage, and fuel flow rate. The study shows performance of the fuel cell regarding temperature changes, distribution, and water mass fraction changes at a common plane across all the models.  The results indicate that the presence of a separate cooling channel and a cooling channel with a heat spreader reduce the local temperatures on the cathode side by about 10°C and 12°C, respectively. The results of the model cells were enhanced by the introduction of cooling channels and heat spreaders.

Keywords


CFD, Cooling, Experiment, Heat spreaders, PEM fuel cell

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