Enhancing Heat Removal and H2O Retention in Passive Air-Cooled PEM Fuel Cell by Altering the Flow-Field Geometry

Abstract This study presents Cathode flow field designs for passive type air-cooled PEM fuel cell to enhance heat removal and H2O retention. The presented designs come with 5 different three dimensional (3D) patterned designs. First, hypotheses were formed based on the research questions and objectives. Followed by that, a deep literature review was done to collect all the relevant data about Passive air-cooled PEM fuel cell in order to provide a clear pathway for the process of 3D design and simulation. 5 new designs for the cathode flow field were conceived based on the research conducted. The study presents 3D designs sketched in SolidWorks and a CFD fluent simulation performed in ANSYS. The data collected is evaluated in terms of water content, average temperature, and current flux density. The proposed designs show an improvement in enhancing heat removal by 1.33% and improving water retention by 6% independently. However, the current flux density shows a reduction of 0.51% and 0.64% in the final values which is not desirable as one of the objectives of this paper is to enhance the performance of the cell. Nevertheless, the value is relatively small compared to the improvement which shows improvement in the durability of the fuel cell. This paper contributes valuable insights to the ongoing research in PEM fuel cell technology. And also provides essential contributions to the UAV technology.