A Semi{Empirical Model for Pressure Drop Prediction in the Anode Microchannel of a DMFC

In this paper, the pressure drop trend in the anode microchannel of a miniature direct methanol fuel cell is investigated. Due to the production of CO۲ gas in the fuel cell, the flow is considered to be two phase and also experiments have shown that the effect of pressure drop attributable to interfacial forces is significant. Several homogeneous andseparated two phase flow models, some of them designed to consider surface tension effects, are compared with available experimental data and results suggest these models’ incapability to even approximately predict the actual pressure drop. Therefore, a previously used semi-empirical model, based on a correlation between the pressure drop and the number of gas slugs, is modified to estimate the pressure drop in the microchannel more accurately. This work can be used to aid the design of fuel pumps and anode flow channels for miniature direct methanol fuel cell systems.

Keywords:

µDMFC , Microchannel , Pressure Drop , Semi-Empirical Model , Two Phase Flow