Studying the Effect of Applying Magnetic Particles in Cathode Electrocatalyst on PEM Fuel Cell Performance

High current density performance of polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEM) is known to be limited by transport of reactant and products. In addition, at high current densities excessive amount of water is generated and condenses, filling the pores of electrode with liquid water, and hence limiting the reactant transport to active catalyst. This phenomenon known as flooding, is an important limiting factor of PEM performance. When some magnet particles are deposited in the catalyst layer of a cathode and magnetized, the cell performance has been improved compared with that of non-magnetized case. Numerical simulation to explain this phenomenon shows that the repulsive Kelvin force caused by the magnet particles manages the liquid water and gas flow in the porous electrode layer. In addition, the saturation level of liquid water (s) near the catalyst interface decreases with increasing the residual magnetic flux density of the magnet particles, and this method improves the cell performance by decreasing the value of s and making more pore space for oxygen gas that decreases the diffusion looses in cathode. At last we considered disadvantages of this method and calculated cell performance with a realistic sight.