麻豆淫院

(麻豆淫院Org.com) -- It took Thomas Edison two years and over 3,000 experiments to develop a marketable light bulb. It has taken 10 times that long and who-knows-how-many experiments to develop a system that is far more complicated: the inner workings of a reliable, marketable hydrogen fuel cell.

Now a research team led by Jeffrey Allen of Michigan Technological University is nearing development of a mathematical model that will slash that R&D time and effort. It focuses on water, a fuel cell鈥檚 worst enemy.

Water vapor is the only emission coming out of the tailpipe of a hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicle, a big reason why fuel cells are so attractive. But moving that water out of the fuel cell can be a soggy problem. Just a teaspoon can kill the reaction that drives hydrogen fuel-cell powered vehicles. And, considering that it can take a stack of dozens of fuel cells to power a car, and a single flooded cell can take down the entire stack, water management becomes a looming issue.

Most of that watery action happens in the fuel cell鈥檚 porous transport layer, or PTL, which is not much thicker than a coffee filter. That鈥檚 where all the byproducts of the fuel cell鈥檚 power-generating reaction meet up with a catalyst and react to form water vapor.

It鈥檚 not easy to find out exactly what鈥檚 happening in the PTL. 鈥淓verything is compressed like crazy,鈥� says Allen, the John F. and Joan M. Calder Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering. 鈥淵ou have to get the gases鈥攈ydrogen and air鈥攖o the catalyst, and you have to get the water away. Figuring out how to do this has largely been a matter of trial and error.鈥�

The latest generation of hydrogen fuel-cell engines does an excellent job of managing water, but as new materials and designs enter the arena, the industry is again faced with a long, costly experimental process to determine the best configuration.

鈥淭here鈥檚 a whole new class of catalysts coming out, and we want to make sure it doesn鈥檛 take another 20 years to optimize the materials set,鈥� says Allen.

Optimizing those up-and-coming materials to get rid of water is especially difficult, because the movement of water in the PTL appears to be random. 鈥淏ut that鈥檚 what we鈥檙e trying to predict,鈥� he says.

At high flow rates, water spreads out evenly. But when the flow rate is low, as it is in an operating fuel cell, it spreads out in irregular shapes like an amoeba, a process called 鈥渇ingering.鈥� Other factors come into play as well, including how saturated the PTL is.

Allen鈥檚 team incorporated those variables into a mathematical model with the aim of forecasting the movement of water. Then they tested it using four different types of PTL and found that they could predict how water would behave with a high degree of accuracy.

鈥淲e were really excited,鈥� Allen says. 鈥淭his is the first time anyone has validated a model in a real sample. We鈥檙e at the point where, by adjusting just one parameter, we are able to duplicate experimental results exactly.鈥�

Now, the group has incorporated temperature and evaporation into their model to make it an even better tool for fuel cell designers.

Allen and Ezequiel Medici, a Michigan Tech PhD graduate and postdoctoral research fellow, have published an article on their work, 鈥淪caling Percolation in Thin Porous Layers,鈥� in the journal 麻豆淫院ics of Fluids, which was published online Dec. 23, 2011. Allen presented a paper on their most recent work, 鈥淧ore-Level Simulation of Multiphase Water and Thermal Transport in Low Temperature Fuel Cells,鈥� at the Paul Scherrer Institute, in Switzerland.