Computer simulation of hydrogen proton exchange membrane and direct methanol fuel cells

This paper describes the computer simulation of electrochemical flow phenomena to predict the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), which include hydrogen and direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs). To study the transport phenomena inside the low temperature fuel cells, the mass, the momentum, and the species equations are required. Darcy laws were employed to simplify the momentum equations in the porous diffusion layers and also to linearize the conservation equation set. That reduces the computational load significantly without losing the generality of the flow field. Performance simulation results were validated with some published experimental data. The comparison shows satisfactory agreement between them. This virtual performance test bench plays an important role in the prototype fuel cell design. The computer aided design tool is able to provide detailed information on the transport phenomena of the fuel cells, in which the flow visualization is not easy to carry out by experiments.