CFD Study of Carbon Corrosion in PEM Fuel Cells

This paper addresses the durability and degradation of Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cells with a focus on carbon corrosion at electrodes. To address this, detailed Butler-Volmer kinetics are implemented in a general purpose finite volume CFD code CFD-ACE+. The code was validated against experimental and model data from the literature showing excellent match with polarization data and partial current densities for individual reactions. Numerical calculations of fuel cell operation under different corrosion conditions were performed in two-dimensional and three-dimensional geometries, Results are presented in terms of distribution of fuel, potential and the current densities. The simulations and results indicate that advanced CFD with detailed Butler-Volmer kinetics can be used to identify the conditions leading to corrosion and guide development of operating conditions and materials to mitigate the electrode degradation and improve the fuel cell system durability.