Predicting the transient response of a serpentine flow-field PEMFC: I. Excess to normal fuel and air

A three-dimensional numerical simulation of the transient response of a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) subjected to a variable load is presented. The model parameters are typical for a laboratory-scale cell with a serpentine flow path and a 10 cm2 reactive area. The simulation uses a commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solver modified to include the electrochemical behavior. The predictions are based on an isothermal set of equations and include transient responses of the cell in terms of local distributions of the current density and gas mole fractions. The predictions show transients in the current density that overshoot the final state value when the cell voltage is abruptly changed from 0.7 to 0.5 V for fixed excess initial stoichiometric flowrates. The fixed flowrates are excess because they correspond to stoichiometries of 2.6 and 4.4 at 0.7 V for the 0.35 A/cm2 predicted initial current density. The percent overshoot decreases with the rate of voltage change and it is shown to change with anode gas flow rates. Also the magnitude of this overshoot and undershoot can be adjusted by changing the rate of voltage change and the operating conditions. The overshoot behavior for these excess stoichiometric flowrates is shown to depend on changes in the oxygen mole fraction distributions.