Transport of gas components in the cathode of PEM fuel cell

Abstract

Simulation of the performance of the PEM fuel cell based on the fluid flow approach in electrodes of the proton exchange fuel cell is developed. Gas mixture transport from flow channel to catalyst layer based on Darcy´s law, Fick´s law and ideal gas law is developed. As field variables both concentrations of hydrogen and water vapour where chosen. As a result, mutually coupled nonlinear partial differential equations were obtained. These equations where solved using standard finite element method in two dimensions.