A three-dimensional PEM fuel cell model with consistent treatment of water transport in MEA

In this paper, a three-dimensional PEM fuel cell model with a consistent water transport treatment in the membrane electrode assembly (MEA) has been developed. In this new PEM fuel cell model, the conservation equation of the water concentration is solved in the gas channels, gas diffusion layers, and catalyst layers while a conservation equation of the water content is established in the membrane. These two equations are connected using a set of internal boundary conditions based on the thermodynamic phase equilibrium and flux equality at the interface of the membrane and the catalyst layer. The existing fictitious water concentration treatment, which assumes thermodynamic phase equilibrium between the water content in the membrane phase and the water concentration, is applied in the two catalyst layers to consider water transport in the membrane phase. Since all the other conservation equations are still developed and solved in the single-domain framework without resort to interfacial boundary conditions, the present new PEM fuel cell model is termed as a mixed-domain method. Results from this mixed-domain approach have been compared extensively with those from the single-domain method, showing good accuracy in terms of not only cell performances and current distributions but also water content variations in the membrane.