Nature-Inspired Flow-Fields and Water Management for PEM Fuel Cells

A nature-inspired solution methodology is used to address flooding issues at high relative humidity (RH) in proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). The water management strategy is based on the mechanism employed by certain lizards, residing in arid environments, to drink water. A thin graphite plate with laser engraved capillaries is installed on our best performing lung-inspired flow-field based PEMFCs with 4 generations (N) and its performance at 100% RH is compared against commercial serpentine flow-field and lung-inspired flow-field (N = 4) based PEMFCs. Initial results demonstrate significant improvement in the performance and operating range of the lung-inspired flow-field based PEMFC when implementing this water management mechanism.