Testing Study of Different Flow Direction and Structure for Air-Cooled Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell

Abstract

The air-cooled proton exchange membrane fuel cell is widely used in unmanned aerial vehicle since its small size and high efficiency. The bipolar plate structure is an important factor affecting the performance of fuel cells. This article conducts experimental research on the impact of different channel structures on performance based on the annular bipolar plate designed by the team. A single air-cooled fuel cell with 50cm2 is used in the experiment to investigate the dynamic response under different current loading rates of 0–40 A. The test results show that the hydrogen and oxygen in different flow directions have a significant impact on the performance of the fuel cell, with a performance improvement of 8.1% by the hydrogen and oxygen in vertical and staggered flow directions for the enhancement of heat and mass transfer ability, and a decrease of about 3.5° compared with the hot spot temperature. In addition, this study further demonstrated the applicability of the annular bipolar plate structure, and verified the impact of different channels on cathode side and ridge shaped structure on performance, wind speed, temperature distribution, stability and mass power density, of which the performance of the fan channel/linear ridge is the best, which is about 8.5% higher than the output power of the worst fan channel/fan back. These test results provide basic data and technical support for the system design and application of air-cooled fuel cell of open cathode.

Keywords

• Air-cooled proton exchange membrane fuel cell
• structure
• flow direction
• bipolar plate
• performance