Effect of placing different obstacles in flow fields on performance of a PEM fuel cell: numerical investigation and experimental comparison

In this study a complete two-dimensional model for proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells was used to investigate the effect of using different obstacles on the performances, current density and gas concentration for different aspect ratios (ARs). The proposed model is a full cell model, which includes all the parts of the PEM fuel cell, flow channels, gas diffusion electrodes, catalyst layers and the membrane. Also a series of tests are carried out to investigate and validate the numerical results of the polarization curve under the normal conditions. A PEM fuel cell with 25 cm² active area and Nafion 117 membrane with 4 mg Pt/cm² for the anode and cathode is employed as a membrane electrode assembly. The results show that the predicted polarization curves by using this model are in good agreement with the experimental results. Also the results show that the local current density reduces more obviously at a higher overpotential than at a lower overpotential because of the more obvious reflection phenomena in the downstream region. At lower operating voltage conditions, the overall cell performance decreases as the AR decreases.