CFD ANALYSIS OF FUEL CELL

Abstract

PEM fuel cells are a promising alternative to fossil fuels in automotive applications and sustainable power-generating technology. One of the major obstacles to the commercialization of these cells is their thermal management. A thermal management system's main task is to keep the required temperature constant, ensuring that the stack and each of its component membranes gets heated uniformly. This work presents a numerical analysis of thermal enhancement for a single cooling plate for a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). A uniformly distributed parallel channel cooling plate measuring 210 x 220 mm and equipped with 19 parallel microchannel of 1 x 4 x 112 mm was utilized to cool PEMFC. The cooling plate was made of carbon graphite material. The 𝑆𝑖𝑂2, 𝐴𝑙2𝑂3 and 𝑍𝑛𝑂 were used as a cooling agent. Simple geometry and modified geometry is used for simulation. The 0.5% volume concentration of 𝑆𝑖𝑂2, 𝐴𝑙2𝑂3 and 𝑍𝑛𝑂 based on water is the study's main topic. The heating pad was chosen as the source term, which has a single energy source with the value of 1298701 𝑊/𝑚 3 and is taken to be constant. Regarding the boundary conditions, the input velocity of water was adjusted between a 400–2000 Reynold Number range. The result showed that when compared to another nanofluid , the 𝑍𝑛𝑂 nanofluid’s (with modified geometry) thermal performance was found to be better at 2000 Reynold Number. The favorable thermal outcomes suggested that 𝑍𝑛𝑂 nanofluid with modified geometry could be a better choice for upcoming uses in PEM fuel cell as coolant.