Vineet Mishra

Research Project

Modeling of PEM Fuel Cells

The goals of the program are to develop a comprehensive model to capture the strongly coupled physical processes of transport and electrochemical phenomena during the transient and steady state operation of fuel cell systems, and to optimize the operating parameters and the design parameters of the components of the fuel cells for target performance requirements. To this end, a comprehensive physical description that couples the flow, temperature, species, potential and current density distribution in the membrane-electrode-assembly (MEA) and gas channels is being developed, and the integrated model is being used in a numerical optimization framework for the optimization of cell design and operating conditions. The specific contributions include: a fundamental description of carbon monoxide poisoning of the anode catalyst layer, development of contact thermal and electrical resistance models and detailed experiments on measurement of the contact resistance for different gas diffusion layer-flow channel combinations, description of the fuel cross over through the membrane, and development of appropriate thermal and electrical conductivity and permeability models for the porous gas diffusion layers. These models will be integrated with the overall cell modeling to obtain, for the first time, a detailed multiscale (ranging from the molecular level to the macroscale), multiphysics description of the fuel cell operation. A numerical optimization scheme will be implemented in conjunction with the physical models to obtain an optimization framework for the design and operation of PEM fuel cells.

Publications

1. V. Mishra, F. Yang, and R. Pitchumani, "Electrical Contact Resistance Between Gas Diffusion Layers and Bipolar Plates in a PEM Fuel Cell," in Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Fuel Cell Science, Engineering and Technology, Rochester, NY, June 14-16, 2004.
2. V. Mishra, F. Yang, and R. Pitchumani, "Measurement and Prediction of Electrical Contact Resistance between Gas Diffusion Layers and Bipolar Plate for Applications to PEM Fuel Cells," ASME Journal of Fuel Cell Science and Technology, 1(1), 2-9, 2004.
3. V. Mishra, F. Yang, and R. Pitchumani, "Analysis and Design of PEM Fuel Cells," Journal of Power Sources, 141(1), 47-64, 2005.