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Article
A Continuum Model for Water Transport in the Ionomer-Phase of Catalyst Coated Membranes for PEMFCs
Advances in Mechanical Engineering (2010)
  • Vladimir Gurau, Georgia Southern University
  • J. Adin Mann, Jr., Case Western Reserve University
Abstract
We study the problem of water transport in the ionomer-phase of catalyst coated membranes (CCMs) for proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), where microscopic-scale phenomena at the distributed interfaces between structural components control the water management. Existing models for water transport in CCMs describe the transport in systems which consist exclusively of an ionomer-phase. Interfacial water fluxes across distributed interfaces representing various mechanisms of water transfer between ionomer and catalyst layer pores are not captured properly in these models. Here we develop a continuum model for water transport in CCMs using the method of volume averaging. Water is exchanged between ionomer and the catalyst layer pores by electro-osmotic discharge (EOD) through the three-phase boundary (TPB) regions and by sorption and desorption across the ionomer-pore interfaces. While the former mechanism does not affect directly the water content in the ionomer-phase, it represents an effective mechanism for water transfer during fuel cell operation and controls directly the water saturation in the catalyst pores.
Keywords
  • Continuum model,
  • Water Transport,
  • Ionomer-phase,
  • Catalyst,
  • Catalyst coated membranes,
  • PEMFCs
Disciplines
Publication Date
January 1, 2010
DOI
10.1155/2010/372795
Publisher Statement

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page.

This article was retrieved from Advances in Mechanical Engineering.
Citation Information
Vladimir Gurau and J. Adin Mann. "A Continuum Model for Water Transport in the Ionomer-Phase of Catalyst Coated Membranes for PEMFCs" Advances in Mechanical Engineering Vol. 2 (2010) p. 1 - 16 ISSN: 1687-8140
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/vladimir-gurau/5/