Study effects of bio-inspired flow filed design on Polymer Electrolyte Membrane fuel cell performance

The performance of the Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) fuel cells is affected by the flow fields design and dimensions because this fields distribute gases to reactive sites, remove reaction products efficiently, and supply a path for electrons of electrical circuit. The present work is an experimental investigation conducted to study effects of using the bio-inspired flow fields configurations on performance of PEM fuel cells. The fuel cell used in the experiments is of PROTIUM- 150 type which has 6 cells, its rated power 150 W (10 A @ 15 V) and its voltage range from 15 V to 23 V. Two new flow fields (i.e. leaf veins, tree shape) inspired from biological system are proposed with active area of 9.84 cm(2). Graphite metal is used to produce bipolar plates contain these flow fields. The performance of the proposed fuel cells is recorded in power and polarization curves, comparing them with that of fuel cell with single-serpentine flow field. The results demonstrate that there is improvement in performance of PEM fuel cell as leaf veins flow field design is used. It is superiors the single - serpentine design by 5.12% and tree shape design by 3.75%.