Polymer electrolyte fuel cells heat transfer

During the operation of a polymer-electrolyte fuel cell, many interrelated and complex phenomena occur. These processes include mass and heat transfer, electrochemical reactions, and ionic and electronic transport. Only through fimdamental modeling, based on physical models developed from experimental observations, can the processes and operation of a fuel cell be truly understood. This review examines and discusses the various regions in a fuel cell and how they have been modeled. 

Finally, there are some miscellaneous polymer-electrolyte fuel cell models that should be mentioned. The models of Okada and co-workers - have examined how impurities in the water affect fuel-cell performance. They have focused mainly on ionic species such as chlorine and sodium and show that even a small concentration, especially next to the membrane at the cathode, impacts the overall fuelcell performance significantly. There are also some models that examine having free convection for gas transfer into the fuel cell. These models are also for very miniaturized fuel cells, so that free convection can provide enough oxygen. The models are basically the same as the ones above, but because the cell area is much smaller, the results and effects can be different. For example, free convection is used for both heat transfer and mass transfer, and the small... 

S. M. Senn and D. Poulikakos. Laminar mixing, heat transfer and pressure drop in tree-like microchannel nets and their application for thermal management in polymer electrolyte fuel cells. J. Power Sources, 130 178-191, 2004. 

Stochastic modeling and direct simulation of the diffusion media for polymer electrolyte fuel cells. Int.J. Heat Mass Transfer, 53, 1128-1138. 

The peripheral equipment needed for direct methanol fuel cells is largely analogous to that of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells. The mechanical basis of fuel cells and stacks on the whole consists of bipolar plates between which the sandwiched membrane-electrode assemblies are arranged. For the venting of heat, cooling plates with a circulating heat transfer agent are set up in a particular order between individual fuel cells in the stack. 

Siegel, C. (2008) Review of computational heat and mass transfer modeling in polymer-electrolyte-membrane (PEM) fuel cells. Energy, 33, 1331. 

Konnepart, P. K. and P. Majumdar. Heat and mass transfer analysis of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell with bipolar plates. Proceedings of ASME 2009 Heat Transfer Summer Conference, HT2009-88630,2009. 

The content of the book has three main themes basic principles, design, and analysis. The theme of basic principles provides the necessary background information on the fuel cells, including the fundamental principles such as the electrochemistry, thermod5mamics, and kinetics of fuel cell reactions as well as mass and heat transfer in fuel cells. It also provides an overview of the key principles of the most important types of fuel cells and their related systems and applications. This includes polymer electrolyte membrane fuel... 

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