Investigation of anode flow field structure on the performance of direct methanol fuel cells using a two-phase flow model

Abstract

A complete flow field, two-phase model for the direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) is developed to investigate the effect of anode flow fields on cell performance, pressure drop, fuel and product management, as well as thermal management. Four anode flow field structures including serpentine flow field (SFF), parallel flow field (PFF), parallel serpentine flow field (PSFF) and double-channel serpentine flow field (DSFF) are discussed in details. The results show that SFF has the highest power density of the flow field and good uniformities of fuel and current density, but the pressure drop increases, and the region in the downstream is prone to bubble blockage and heat accumulation because of the long flow path; While PFF has lower pressure loss, but weak convection capacity in the flow channel, resulting in poor cell performance. DSFF has the best overall performance, and PSFF is next, since they have higher power density, lower pressure loss, superior CO2 gas removal capability and better thermal management performance.

Keywords

• Direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC)
• Two-phase flow
• Anode flow field
• Fuel and product management
• Thermal management
• Simulation