Impact of liquid water on oxygen reaction in cathode catalyst layer of proton exchange membrane fuel cell: A simple and physically sound model

• We developed agglomerate models for oxygen reaction in unsaturated catalyst layer.
• The models do not simplify catalyst layer structure and water distribution in it.
• The models allow oxygen to dissolve in water and ionomer at different rates.
• We evaluated the effect of saturation of catalyst layer on cell performance.

When cells work at high current density, liquid water accumulates in their catalyst layer (CL) and the gaseous oxygen could dissolve into the water and the ionomer film simultaneously; their associated dissolved concentrations in equilibrium with the gaseous oxygen are also different. Based on a CL acquired using tomography, we present new methods in this paper to derive agglomerate models for partly saturated CL by viewing the movement and reaction of the dissolved oxygen in the two liquids (water and ionomer) and the agglomerate as two independent random processes. Oxygen dissolved in the water moves differently from oxygen dissolved in the ionomer, and to make the analysis tractable, we use an average distribution function to describe the average movement of all dissolved oxygen. A formula is proposed to describe this average distribution function, which, in combination with the exponential distribution assumed in the literature for oxygen reaction, leads to a simple yet physically sound agglomerate model. The model has three parameters which can be directly calculated from CL structure rather than by calibration. We explain how to calculate these parameters under different water contents for a given CL structure, and analyse the impact of liquid water on cell performance.