Optimization of dual-layer flow field in a water electrolyzer using a data-driven surrogate model
Lizhen Wu,
Zhefei Pan,
Shu Yuan,
Xiaoyu Huo,
Qiang Zheng,
Xiaohui Yan,
Liang An
Affiliations
Lizhen Wu
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
Zhefei Pan
Key Laboratory of Low-grade Energy Utilization Technologies and Systems (Chongqing University), Ministry of Education, Chongqing, 400030, China; Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400030, China
Shu Yuan
Institute of Fuel Cells, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200240, China
Xiaoyu Huo
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
Qiang Zheng
Eastern Institute for Advanced Study, Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo, Zhejiang 315200, China; Corresponding authors.
Xiaohui Yan
Institute of Fuel Cells, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200240, China; Corresponding authors.
Liang An
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China; Research Institute for Sports Science and Technology, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China; Corresponding authors.
Serious bubble clogging in flow-field channels will hinder the water supply to the electrode of proton exchange membrane water electrolyzer (PEMWE), deteriorating the cell performance. In order to address this issue, the dual-layer flow field design has been proposed in our previous study. In this study, the VOF (volume of fluid) method is utilized to investigate the effects of different degassing layer and base heights on the bubble behavior in channel and determine the time for the bubbles to detach from the electrode surface. However, it is very time-consuming to get the optimal combination of base layer and degassing layer heights due to the large number of potential cases, which needs to be calculated through computation-intensive physical model. Therefore, machine learning methods are adopted to accelerate the optimization. A data-driven surrogate model based on deep neural network (DNN) is developed and successfully trained using data obtained by the physical VOF method. Based on the highly efficient surrogate, genetic algorithm (GA) is further utilized to determine the optimal heights of base layer and degassing layer. Finally, the reliability of the optimization was validated by bubble visualization in channel and electrochemical characterization in PEMWE through experiments.
