Iranian Researchers Find Innovative Way to Cool Fuel Cells
Behnam Vojoudi, a PhD student in mechanical engineering, implemented a research project titled ‘Cooling of polymer membrane fuel cells using two-phase Taylor flow’.
“In this project, our research focused on improving the cooling of polymer membrane fuel cells to increase their production capacity,” Vojoudi said.
“Therefore, during these studies, a large number of methods that have been used so far for fuel cell cooling were discussed and examined, and the advantages and disadvantages of each were extracted. Then, a new method and new approach to use two-phase Taylor flow to increase heat transfer and cooling were proposed and numerically examined,” he added, noting that this method is presented for the first time in the field of fuel cell cooling.
“The results of this research show that the two-phase Taylor water-air flow has shown much better performance compared to the single-phase water flow and can be used in cooling fuel cells with high production power. In fact, optimal and uniform cooling of the fuel cell increases its production power and life,” Vojoudi said.
“The method of implementation of the work was numerical simulation based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) which was carried out by the open source software OpenFOAM. An attempt has been made to see all the real conditions governing this physical equipment in the relevant equations,” he added.
Fuel cell cooling systems are essential for maintaining optimal operating temperatures and ensuring efficient performance.
These systems remove the heat generated during the electrochemical reactions within the fuel cell stack. Common cooling methods include liquid cooling, air cooling, phase change cooling, and thermoelectric cooling.
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