A comparative study on capillary pressure correlations of water transport in PEMFC gas diffusion layer

Abstract

This paper numerically compares the existing capillary pressure correlations of gas diffusion layer with a three-dimensional PEMFC model. The cell performance and liquid water distributions are calculated with different pc-s correlations under the same conditions. The results indicate that the applicability of these correlations are not consistent. Polynomials with higher orders predict the polarization curve better. Exponential correlations tends to overestimate the capillary pressure and liquid water saturation. Therefore, the uniformity of oxygen concentration and fuel cell performance are underestimated.