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Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology, Modelling and Simulation II

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A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "A5: Hydrogen Energy".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (2 November 2023) | Viewed by 9108

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Dr. Ahmad Baroutaji

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Faculty of Engineering and Physical Science, Aston University, Aston Triangle, Birmingham B4 7ET, UK
Interests: additive manufacturing; engineering design and manufacturing; crashworthiness, fuel cell technology
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Dear Colleagues,

Fuel cells are devices that generate electricity through an electrochemical reaction with only heat and water as by-products. Nowadays, fuel cell devices are receiving increased attention as clean energy sources for various practical applications—from small electronic devices to vehicles. Effective design and development of the various components of a fuel cell require an in-depth understanding of the influence of different design variables on the performance of these components. Fuel cell operation involves simultaneous and multiphysics complex processes, and due to the highly reactive, compact nature of the fuel cell, it is challenging to conduct in-situ measurements of critical parameters, such as temperature, pressure and potential gradients, or species concentration. Various computational and modelling techniques, which allow systematic simulation, design, and optimization of fuel cell systems, are valuable tools that provide insight into the phenomena occurring within the cell, reducing the development cycles, and enabling to build the next generation of fuel cells.

Thus, this Special Issue focuses on the recent developments and applications of modelling, simulation, and optimisation tools for the design and development of different types of fuel cell devices.

Dr. Ahmad Baroutaji
Guest Editor

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Keywords

CFD
Matlab
modelling
simulations
optimisation
PEM
SOFC
DMFC
fuel cell

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

23 pages, 10464 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Three-Dimensional Time-Dependent Model of the Degradation Caused by Chromium Poisoning in a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Stack

by Shangzhe Yu, Dominik Schäfer, Shidong Zhang, Roland Peters, Felix Kunz and Rüdiger-A. Eichel

Energies 2023, 16(23), 7841; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16237841 - 29 Nov 2023

Viewed by 1324

Abstract

Chromium poisoning strongly influences the performance of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) stacks. A novel numerical model is introduced by incorporating the chemical and electrochemical aspects of chromium poisoning. It offers a detailed analysis of the spatial distribution of critical chromium-based species, including SrCrO₄ and Cr₂O₃. This model is integrated with a pre-existing three-dimensional, time-dependent computational fluid dynamics (CFD) toolbox, openFuelCell2. The numerical simulations indicate a quantitative agreement with experimental data over an extended 100 kh operation. Numerical simulations are conducted within a representative channel geometry originating from an F10 SOFC stack at Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, and consider a wide range of stack designs, temperatures, and air absolute humidities. The simulation results demonstrate the potential of a protective coating produced through atmospheric plasma spraying (APS) technology in nearly eliminating chromium poisoning. It is also found that the APS protective coating could enable the operation of an SOFC stack with low requirements of air dehumidification at a temperature of 650

^{\circ}

C. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology, Modelling and Simulation II)

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17 pages, 2083 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Bypass Configurations of Membrane Humidifiers for Water Management in PEM Fuel Cells

by Hoang Nghia Vu, Dinh Hoang Trinh, Dat Truong Le Tri and Sangseok Yu

Energies 2023, 16(19), 6986; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16196986 - 7 Oct 2023

Viewed by 1557

Abstract

Water management is an important criterion in the operation of proton-exchange membrane fuel cells to maintain the high performance and reliability of the system. The water content in the cathode air that is supplied to the cathode channel contributes to the membrane humidification and the transport of protons inside the membrane structure. In automotive applications, the supply air is typically driven through an external membrane humidifier to absorb more moisture from the recirculated cathode exhaust. In the literature, humidifiers and fuel cell stacks have been separately investigated without considering whole-system configurations for water management. This study investigates changes in the cathode air characteristics through a membrane humidifier and compares two configurations using a humidifier bypass of the supply flow and exhaust flow to adjust the cathode inlet air relative humidity. Each component in the system was modeled using mathematical relations and converted into blocks of inputs and outputs in MATLAB/Simulink for simulation. The bypass valve was demonstrated to effectively reduce the relative humidity of the supply air from the saturation rate to above 60%, with a bypass fraction of up to 0.6 in both configurations. These adjustments provide system flexibility to accommodate load changes and prevent flooding in the stack channels. Bypassing the supply air through the humidifier effectively maintained consistent cathode inlet humidity across a wide operational range. A 0.4 bypass fraction on the supply side sustained a relative humidity of around 80% for the whole range of operating flow rates. In contrast, the exhaust-side bypass had a smaller impact, and the relative humidity of the cathode air was reduced when the flow rate and bypass fraction increased. This study further supports the control system design to regulate the bypass fraction according to load transients. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology, Modelling and Simulation II)

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17 pages, 3790 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Research on the Influence of Ripple Voltage on the Performance of a Proton Exchange Membrane Electrolyzer

by Tianze Yuan, Hua Li, Jikang Wang and Dong Jia

Energies 2023, 16(19), 6912; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16196912 - 30 Sep 2023

Viewed by 1494

Abstract

The power quality of hydrogen production converters is related to the characteristics of electrolytic hydrogen production, which is crucial to efficiency, power loss and other performance factors of hydrogen production. In order to explore the influence of the output voltage ripple of a hydrogen production converter on the hydrogen production performance of a proton exchange membrane electrolyzer, a proton exchange membrane electrolyzer model was established according to the principles of material conservation and electrochemistry. The performance characteristics of the proton exchange membrane electrolyzer and the effects of three kinds of ripple voltage with different frequencies and amplitudes on the hydrogen production efficiency and power consumption of the proton exchange membrane electrolyzer were explored. The effects of the three kinds of ripple were consistent. For example, when the ripple coefficient of the sinusoidal ripple voltage was increased by 45%, the average power consumption increased by 61%. When the ripple coefficient was constant, the frequency increased by 1000%, and the average power consumption increased by only 0.033%. In the range of low ripple coefficient (0~35%), the hydrogen production rate was reduced by 2% at most. When the ripple coefficient was in the range of 35~70%, the hydrogen production rate was reduced by 12% at most. The results showed that the ripple coefficient had a greater impact on the power consumption and hydrogen production rate of the electrolyzer, but the frequency was smaller. Among the three kinds of ripple, the triangular wave had the least influence on the power consumption and hydrogen production rate of the electrolytic cell. This study provides reference and theoretical support for the subsequent engineering application, precise control and dynamic characteristics of proton exchange membrane electrolyzer. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology, Modelling and Simulation II)

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19 pages, 9139 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A System-Level Modeling of PEMFC Considering Degradation Aspect towards a Diagnosis Process

by Antoine Bäumler, Jianwen Meng, Abdelmoudjib Benterki, Toufik Azib and Moussa Boukhnifer

Energies 2023, 16(14), 5310; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16145310 - 11 Jul 2023

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1477

Abstract

This paper proposes a modular modeling towards a health system integration of fuel cells by considering not only the dynamics of the gases but also fault models that affect the PEMFC performances. The main goal is to simulate the faulty state in order to overcome data scarcity, since running a fuel cell to generate a database under faulty conditions is a costly process in time and resources. The degradation processes detailed in this paper allow to introduce a classification of faults that can occur, giving a better understanding of the performance losses necessary to simulate them. The faults that are detailed and modeled are the flooding, drying and aging processes. This modeling is based on a system approach, so it runs faster than real-time degradation tests, allowing the training and validation of online supervisors, such as the energy management strategy (EMS) method or diagnosis. The faults are reproduced according to the study requirements to be a very effective support tool to help design engineers to include faulty conditions in early design stages toward a diagnosis process and health-conscious energy management strategies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology, Modelling and Simulation II)

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22 pages, 3029 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Numerical Modeling and Simulation of the Solid Oxide Cell Stacks and Metal Interconnect Oxidation with OpenFOAM

by Shangzhe Yu, Shidong Zhang, Dominik Schäfer, Roland Peters, Felix Kunz and Rüdiger-A. Eichel

Energies 2023, 16(9), 3827; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16093827 - 29 Apr 2023

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2668

Abstract

Solid oxide cells are capable of efficiently converting various chemical energy carriers to electricity and vice versa. The urgent challenge nowadays is the faster degradation rate compared with other fuel cell/electrolyzer technologies. To understand the degradation mechanisms, simulation of a solid oxide cell is helpful. Since most previous research developed models using commercial software, such as COMSOL and ANSYS Fluent, a gap for knowledge transfer is being gradually formed between academia and industry due to licensing issues. This paper introduces a multiphysics model, developed by a computational code, openFuelCell2. The code is implemented with an open-source library, OpenFOAM. It accounts for momentum transfer, mass transfer, electrochemical reactions and metal interconnect oxidation. The model can precisely predict I–V curves under different temperatures, fuel humidity and operation modes. Comparison between OpenFOAM and COMSOL simulations shows good agreement. The metal interconnect oxidation is modeled, which can predict the thickness of the oxide scale under different protective coatings. Simulations are conducted by assuming an ultra-thin film resistance on the rib surface. It is revealed that coatings fabricated by atmospheric plasma spraying can efficiently prevent metal interconnect oxidation, with a contribution of only 0.53 % to the total degradation rate. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology, Modelling and Simulation II)

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