Abstract
A direct numerical simulation (DNS) model is developed to achieve pore-level description of polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) electrodes. The DNS method solves point-wise accurate conservation equations directly on an electrode microstructure comprising of various phases and hence utilizes the intrinsic transport properties of each phase. Idealized two- and three-dimensional regular microstructures are constructed to represent the porous cathode catalyst layer. Various voltage losses identified from the simulation results are compared with experimental observations. This pore-scale model is further applied to study the morphological effects, such as pore size, layer thickness and porosity, on the performance of the cathode catalyst layer.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 3139-3150 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | Electrochimica Acta |
Volume | 51 |
Issue number | 15 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Apr 1 2006 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- General Chemical Engineering
- Electrochemistry