A numerical study of the influence of gas diffusion layer porosity on cell performance of counter flow proton exchange membrane fuel cells

This study characterizes the cell performance of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) considering the counter flow of hydrogen and air. The effects of the Porosity of Anode and Cathode Gas Diffusion Layers (GDL) on the current density, power density and mass transfer were investigated. Half-cell model was employed for computational analysis and parallel flow was simulated for validation. The results showed that the porosity affects the limiting current density especially in low cell voltages and this condition is achievable in practice by diminishing the oxygen diffusion in the GDL. Also the simulations confirmed the increase in power density by about 6 percent when increasing the porosity of GDL by about 20 percent in the Counter Flow PEMFC.

A numerical study of the influence of gas diffusion layer porosity on cell performance of counter flow proton exchange membrane fuel cells Keywords:

Current Density , Fluent , Gas Diffusion Layer (GDL) , Porosity. Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) ,