Active Water Management for PEM Fuel Cells

Proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells require humidified gases to maintain proper membrane humidification, but this often results in a problematic accumulation of liquid water. Typically, excessive air flow rates and serpentine channel designs are used to mitigate flooding at the cost of system efficiency. In this paper, we present an active water management system that decouples water removal from oxidant delivery. The system uses a porous carbon flow field plate as an integrated wick that can passively redistribute water within the fuel cell. The system also employs an external electro-osmotic (EO) pump that actively removes excess water from the channels and gas diffusion layer. For a fuel cell with 23 parallel air channels, we demonstrate a 60% increase in maximum power density over a standard graphite plate with a low air stoichiometry of 1.3. EO pumping represents a negligible parasitic load, consuming typically less than 0.5% of the fuel cell power. Experimental and modeling results show that simple passive water transport through the porous carbon alone can prevent flooding at certain operating conditions and flow field dimensions. However, active water management with EO pumping facilitates robust operation with a high volumetric power density across all operating conditions.