An approach to modeling two-phase transport in the gas diffusion layer of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell

A series of analysis methods is proposed to simulate the liquid-gas two-phase and multi-component transport phenomena in the gas diffusion layer (GDL) of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). These methods involve measuring and predicting the two-phase flow properties of a GDL, and simulating the two-phase multi-component transport in the GDL. The capillary pressure is measured by the porous diaphragm method and predicted by the pore network model. The relative permeability is measured by the steady-state method and predicted by a combination of the single-phase and the two-phase lattice Boltzmann method. And the simulation of the liquid-gas two-phase transport is done using the multi-phase mixture model. The methods are applied to a carbon-fiber paper GDL to identify the two-phase multi-component transport in the GDL. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.