Investigation on the effect of transverse distribution obstacles on PEMFC performance

In order to optimize the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), obstacles with transverse distribution were set up in the channel, and the effect of the arrangement mode, number, and size of obstacles on PEMFC performance was studied. It is found that obstacles with transverse distribution in the channel can accelerate reactant transfer to gas diffusion layer, improved the utilization rate of reactants, and promoted the local current density distribution and electrochemical performance of PEMFC. The obstacle with aligned distribution (type I) in the channel was superior to the staggered distribution (type II) in terms of fuel cell output characteristic and mass transfer. The best set of obstacles design schemes in this research was aligned distribution (type I), with the number of obstacles in a single channel reached 36, the length of the obstacle was 1 mm, the width was 0.2 mm, and the height was 1 mm. Compared with traditional scheme, the net power density of the designed scheme was increased by about 47.8%, and the drainage performance increased by about 32.6%.