IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v377y2025ipbs0306261924019342.html

Innovative flow field design strategies for performance optimization in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells

Author

Listed:
  • Choi, Jaeyoo
  • Park, Yooseong
  • Park, Jihoon
  • Kim, Chanyoung
  • Heo, Seongku
  • Kim, Sun-Dong
  • Ju, Hyunchul

Abstract

This study introduces an innovative flow field design methodology that departs from traditional approaches, aiming to simplify design variables and ensure an efficient, automated design process. This methodology integrates topology optimization, the Gray-Scott reaction/diffusion system, and Murray's law to design the flow field layout. We applied this methodology to the flow field design of Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC) bipolar plates. Specifically, the optimal two-dimensional pattern of the PEMFC cathode flow field was achieved by merging topology optimization with the Gray-Scott reaction/diffusion system. Applying Murray's law, an optimal three-dimensional flow field with an unpredictable new pattern was established. The design emphasizes efficient fuel diffusion and reduced flow resistance, validated through experiments. Quantitative comparisons with serpentine and parallel flow fields showed performance differences of approximately 60 mV and 120 mV at a current density of 1.43 A/cm2, respectively. These metrics reflect the impact on mass transfer efficiency under high-power PEMFC operations, serving as critical indicators of flow field effectiveness. Additionally, simulations confirmed an 18-fold reduction in pressure drop compared to the serpentine design. This innovative design process offers advantages that could be incorporated into diverse research areas in the future.

Suggested Citation

  • Choi, Jaeyoo & Park, Yooseong & Park, Jihoon & Kim, Chanyoung & Heo, Seongku & Kim, Sun-Dong & Ju, Hyunchul, 2025. "Innovative flow field design strategies for performance optimization in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 377(PB).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:377:y:2025:i:pb:s0306261924019342
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2024.124551
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261924019342
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2024.124551?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Roshandel, R. & Arbabi, F. & Moghaddam, G. Karimi, 2012. "Simulation of an innovative flow-field design based on a bio inspired pattern for PEM fuel cells," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 86-95.
    2. Cai, Genchun & Liang, Yunmin & Liu, Zhichun & Liu, Wei, 2020. "Design and optimization of bio-inspired wave-like channel for a PEM fuel cell applying genetic algorithm," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Borjigin, Tala & Xiao, Feng & Li, Yuxin & Wang, Kaichen & Yu, Zhangying & Liao, Zhirong & Xu, Chao, 2025. "Topology optimization of flow distribution zones mitigating preferential flow in large-scale PEM electrolyzers," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 335(C).
    2. Jiang, Ke & Jiang, Haolin & Zhang, Liang & Luan, Yang & Zheng, Tongxi & Liu, Mingxin & Su, Xunkang & Feng, Yihui & Lu, Guolong & Liu, Zhenning, 2026. "AI-assisted design and optimization of novel asymmetric microchannel flow fields for proton exchange membrane fuel cells," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 405(C).
    3. Qinwen Yang & Xuan Liu & Gang Xiao & Zhen Zhang, 2025. "PEMFC Semi-Empirical Model Improvement by Reconstructing Concentration Loss," Energies, MDPI, vol. 18(7), pages 1-24, March.
    4. Li, Fazong & Luo, Hao & Hu, Jianping & Cai, Yonghua & Yang, Tianqi, 2025. "Study on a novel dot array cathode flow field with discrete ship-shaped ribs structures for proton exchange membrane fuel cell," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 393(C).
    5. Najmi, Aezid-Ul-Hassan & Wahab, Abdul & Prakash, Rohith & Schopen, Oliver & Esch, Thomas & Shabani, Bahman, 2025. "Thermal management of fuel cell-battery electric vehicles: Challenges and solutions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 387(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sadiq T. Bunyan & Hayder A. Dhahad & Dhamyaa S. Khudhur & Talal Yusaf, 2023. "The Effect of Flow Field Design Parameters on the Performance of PEMFC: A Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-62, June.
    2. Zhou, Yu & Chen, Ben, 2023. "Investigation of optimization and evaluation criteria for flow field in proton exchange membrane fuel cell: A critical review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    3. Zhang, Shuanyang & Liu, Shun & Xu, Hongtao & Liu, Gaojie & Wang, Ke, 2022. "Performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cells with honeycomb-like flow channel design," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(PB).
    4. Li, Hong-Wei & Liu, Jun-Nan & Yang, Yue & Fan, Wenxuan & Lu, Guo-Long, 2022. "Research on mass transport characteristics and net power performance under different flow channel streamlined imitated water-drop block arrangements for proton exchange membrane fuel cell," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    5. Yulin Wang & Xiangling Liao & Guokun Liu & Haokai Xu & Chao Guan & Huixuan Wang & Hua Li & Wei He & Yanzhou Qin, 2023. "Review of Flow Field Designs for Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-54, May.
    6. Zhang, Yong & He, Shirong & Jiang, Xiaohui & Wang, Zhuo & Wang, Yonggang & Gu, Meng & Yang, Xi & Zhang, Shuanyang & Cao, Jing & Fang, Haoyan & Li, Qiming, 2024. "Performance and configuration optimization of proton exchange membrane fuel cell considering dual symmetric Tesla valve flow field," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 288(C).
    7. Lin, Peijian & Yang, Dehui & Zhao, Yang & Wang, Hongyu & Yang, Guogang & Li, Shian & Sun, Juncai, 2024. "Numerical investigation on designs and performances of multi-dimensional forced convection flow field design of proton exchange membrane fuel cell," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    8. Wilberforce, Tabbi & Olabi, A.G. & Pritchard, Daniel & Abdelkareem, Mohammad Ali & Sayed, Enas Taha, 2023. "Development of proton exchange membrane fuel cell flow plate geometry design," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 283(C).
    9. Zhang, Yong & He, Shirong & Jiang, Xiaohui & Xiong, Mu & Ye, Yuntao & Yang, Xi, 2023. "Three-dimensional multi-phase simulation of proton exchange membrane fuel cell performance considering constriction straight channel," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 267(C).
    10. He, Zhaoyu & Guo, Weimin & Zhang, Peng, 2022. "Performance prediction, optimal design and operational control of thermal energy storage using artificial intelligence methods," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    11. Prantik Roy Chowdhury & Adam C. Gladen, 2024. "Design of Flow Fields for High-Temperature PEM Fuel Cells Using Computational Fluid Dynamics," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(19), pages 1-27, September.
    12. Yonghua Cai & Jingming Sun & Fan Wei & Ben Chen, 2022. "Effect of Baffle Dimensionless Size Factor on the Performance of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-19, May.
    13. Maidhily, M. & Rajalakshmi, N. & Dhathathreyan, K.S., 2013. "Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy as a diagnostic tool for the evaluation of flow field geometry in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 79-84.
    14. Wang, Junye, 2015. "Theory and practice of flow field designs for fuel cell scaling-up: A critical review," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 640-663.
    15. Nguyen, Ba Hieu & Kim, Hyun Chul, 2024. "Novel design of a staggered-trap/block flow field for use in serpentine proton exchange membrane fuel cells," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 236(C).
    16. Wilberforce, Tabbi & El Hassan, Zaki & Ogungbemi, Emmanuel & Ijaodola, O. & Khatib, F.N. & Durrant, A. & Thompson, J. & Baroutaji, A. & Olabi, A.G., 2019. "A comprehensive study of the effect of bipolar plate (BP) geometry design on the performance of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 236-260.
    17. Rostami, Leila & Haghshenasfard, Masoud & Sadeghi, Morteza & Zhiani, Mohammad, 2022. "A 3D CFD model of novel flow channel designs based on the serpentine and the parallel design for performance enhancement of PEMFC," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).
    18. Haibo Huo & Jiajie Chen & Ke Wang & Fang Wang & Guangzhe Jin & Fengxiang Chen, 2023. "State Estimation of Membrane Water Content of PEMFC Based on GA-BP Neural Network," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-16, June.
    19. Zhao, Chen & Han, Yaru & Xing, Shuang & Deng, Zhijun & Liu, Kunxiang & Xiao, Wenchao, 2025. "Study on performance enhancement and modeling of air-cooled proton exchange membrane fuel cell for different runner structure," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 389(C).
    20. Chen, Xi & Yang, Chen & Sun, Yun & Liu, Qinxiao & Wan, Zhongmin & Kong, Xiangzhong & Tu, Zhengkai & Wang, Xiaodong, 2022. "Water management and structure optimization study of nickel metal foam as flow distributors in proton exchange membrane fuel cell," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 309(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:377:y:2025:i:pb:s0306261924019342. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.