Model based design and test of cooling plates for an air-cooled polymer electrolyte fuel cell stack

Design of an effective cooling system in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) is vital for the heat management and overall performance of stacks. Depending on the stack size and application, either air or water-cooling can be used to extract excess heat and maintain the desired temperature distribution throughout the stack.A computational model previously assembled by the authors has been used to design cooling plates for a typical air-cooled stack configuration. The aim of these designs was to minimise temperature differences between cells, and dissipate heat from the stack. Three different cooling plate designs are analysed both computationally and experimentally within stacks containing electrically heated pads in place of active MEAs.Good agreement was achieved between the model and experiment, and results showed that implementing a cooling plate is an effective way to balance temperature variation within a stack and minimise thermal issues. It was found that the temperature variation may be minimised by implementing plates with wider cooling channels. As a result, more air may be forced through the channels with less resistance, which minimises the power required by the air blower, and hence the parasitic load on the system.