Investigating the effect of the baffles in the cathode channel on the temperature distribution of the polymer membrane fuel cell

Heat management in the polymer membrane fuel cell is necessary to increase the rate of reactions, prevent the formation of hot spots, and prevent the membrane from drying out. In the polymer membrane fuel cell, in the polymer membrane fuel cell, there is a limitation in increasing and decreasing the temperature. The flow field affects the mass and heat transfer and consequently the current density, and the proper design of the flow field leads to the improvement of the fuel cell performance. Parallel flow channels with baffles can increase the transfer of reactants to the catalyst layer and reduces the maximum temperature, uniforms temperature distribution and improve battery performance. In this article, the numerical, three-dimensional and two-phase modeling of the fuel cell with channels along with baffles is discussed and its electrochemical and thermal performance is compared with the battery with simple parallel channels. The results show that the addition of the baffles improves the mass transfer from the channels to the gas diffusion layer and hence the reaction rate in the cell increases and leads to improved cell performance. Also, the presence of the baffles causes the maximum temperature of the fuel cell to decrease by more than 1 Kelvin and the temperature distribution becomes more uniform.