Performance Analysis of a Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cell System for Automotive Application

In this study a polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) model is analyzed for automotive application and the parameters that are affecting its performance such as relative humidity, mass flow rate, temperature and pressure of inlet gases also, heat and water management are major issues in these cells are investigated. Here, the equation of continuity, momentum, conservation of spices, energy, charges together with electrochemical kinetic for all regions within the cell is developed as a single-domain and solved numerically. The voltage and power density profiles are derived in terms of current density for different operating conditions. The result indicates that increasing temperature and pressure for all output voltages would improve cell performance. Forhigh voltages where there is no phase changes in the cell, increasing the percentage of humidity and reducing mass flow rate would have a positive effect on cell performance, but at low output voltage by increasing relative humidity and reducing mass flow rate would hamper cell performance. Also increasing inlet pressure, humidity and mass flow rate results in partial power loss of fuel cell.