Wave flow field design optimization for enhanced performance of high-temperature PEM fuel cells

作者：Mingwei Li, Lirong Fu, Huadong Lin, Jinyi Liu, Xiaosong Zhang · 发表于：Fuel · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1016/j.fuel.2025.137136 · 被引用次数：10 · 研究领域：Fuel Cells and Related Materials、Electrocatalysts for Energy Conversion、Advancements in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

High-temperature proton exchange membrane Fuel Cell (HT-PEMFC) can directly convert chemical energy into electricity with high energy density. The flow field structure influences gas flow behavior and reactant distribution uniformity, which critically affects HT-PEMFC performance. This study develops a three-dimensional steady-state model of HT-PEMFC to investigate mass transport characteristics and performance with wave flow fields, which incorporate sinusoidal channel geometries into cathode parallel, serpentine, and interdigitated configurations. The results reveal that the wave channel flow fields improve the efficiency of mass transport and the performance of HT-PEMFC. Effects of the wave channel structure parameters on the HT-PEMFC performance are investigated. A genetic algorithm was used to optimize the channel amplitude and wavelength to maximize net power density. Compared to the straight channel design, the optimized wave channel parallel flow field achieves the highest peak net power density of 0.5033 W/cm 2 , representing an improvement of 11.48 %. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of integrating and optimizing wave flow field structures to improve HT-PEMFC output performance.