Modeling of mass transfer in a T-shaped microfluidic fuel cell

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Birjand University faculty member

2 university of birjand

Abstract

The development of microelectronic devices has increased the need for a power supply with high power density for long-term operation. In this article, firstly, the microfluidic fuel cells (MFCs) have been introduced, secondly, due to the significant effect of mass transfer on their performance, mass transfer in these fuel cells has been investigated. MFCs have small dimensions and simple geometry, and usually, formic acid and oxygen dissolved in sulfuric acid are used as fuel and oxidizers, respectively. To model the MFC, the equations of continuity, momentum, and mass transfer have been solved in three-dimensional by Open-Foam open-source software and validated with the results available in the references. From Fick's equation has been used to calculate rate of diffusion and from the Butler-Volmer equation has been used to calculate rates of electrochemical reactions in catalyst layers. Preliminary results indicate that the performance of this fuel cell is greatly limited by poor fuel utilization, which is consistent with the experimental data. The flow is fully developed in this short distance from the inlet, and in the fully developed area, the ratio u_max⁄u ̅ is equal 2.1. The mixing zone located at the interface of fuel and oxidizer is in the shape of an hourglass in cross-section, and with increasing the inlet velocity, its thickness decreases along the channel. Also, as the flow moves along the channel, the thickness of the layer with a low concentration near the electrodes increases.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

[1] Omid Babaie Rizvan, Serhat Yesilyurt, Modeling and performance analysis of branched microfluidic fuel cells with high utilization, Electrochimica Acta, Vol. 318, 2019, p.169-180.
[2] Y. Wang, S. Luo, Holly Y.H. Kwok, W. Pan, Y. Zhang, X. Zhao, Dennis Y.C. Leung, Microfluidic fuel cells with different types of fuels: A prospective review, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 141 (2021) 110806.
[3] H. Hassanzadeh, S. H. Mansouri, Efficiency of ideal fuel cell and Carnot cycle from a fundamental perspective, J. of Power and Energy, Vol. 219(2005), p. 245–254.
[4]    R. O’Hare, S. W. Cha, W. Colella, F. B. Prinz, Fuel Cell Fundamentals, John Wiley & Sons, 2016.
[5] Matthew M. Mench, Fuel Cell Engines, John Wiley & Sons, 2008.
[6] S. A. Mousavi Shaegh, Nam-Trung Nguyen, S. Chan, A review on membraneless laminar flowbased fuel cells, Int. J. of Hydrogen Energy, Vol.36, 2011, p.5675-5694.
[7] Eric R. Choban, Larry J. Markoski, A. Wieckowski, Paul J.A. Kenis, Microfluidic fuel cell based on laminar flow, J. of Power Sources, Vol. 128, 2004, p. 54-60.
[8] A. Bazylak, D. Sinton, N. Djilali, Improved fuel utilization in microfluidic fuel cells: A computational
study, J. of Power Sources, Vol.143, 2005, 57-66.
[9] J. Phirani, S. Basu, Analyses of fuel utilization in microfluidic fuel cell, J. of Power Source, Vol. 175, 2008, p. 261–265.
[10] M.H. Sun, G. V. Casquillas, S.S. Guo, J. Shi, H. Ji, Q. Ouyang, Y. Chen, Characterization of microfluidic fuel cell based on multiple laminar flow, Microelectronic Engineering, Vol. 84, 2007, p. 1182–1185.
[11] M.N. Nasharudin, S.K. Kamarudin, U.A. Hasran, M.S. Masdar, Mass transfer and performance of membrane-less micro fuel cell: A review, Inter. J. of Hydrogen Energy, Vol.39, 2014, p. 1039-1055.
[12] Lixin Fan, Zhengkai Tu, Siew Hwa Chan, Recent development of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies: A review, Energy Report, Vol. 7, 2021, 8421-8446.
[13] B. Zhu, Microfluidic Fuel Cells – Modeling and Simulation, MS Thesis, Concordia University, Canada, 2010.
[14] T. Ouyang, F. Zhou , J. Chen , J. Lu , N. Chen, A novel approach for modelling microfluidic fuel cell
coupling vibration, J. of Power Sources, Vol. 450 ,2020, 227728.
[15] B. Zhang, D. Ye, P. Sui, N. Djilali, X. Zhu, Computational modeling of air-breathing microfluidic fuel cells with flow-over and flow-through anodes, of Power Sources, Vol. 259, 2014, p. 15-24.
[16] G. Hoogers, Fuel cell technology handbook, 2003, CRC Press.
[17] A. B. Khabbazi, A. J. Richards, M. Hoorfar, Numerical study of the effect of the channel
and electrode geometry on the performance of microfluidic fuel cells, J. of Power Sources, Vol. 195, 2010, p. 8141-8151.
[18] R. Shah, and A. London, Thermal boundary conditions and some solutions for laminar duct
flow forced convection. J. of Heat Transfer, Vol. 96, 1974, p. 159-165.
[19] Nima Samkhaniani, OpenFOAM9 training via problem-solving [in Persian], 2023.
Hydrogen, Fuel Cell & Energy Storage
Volume 10, Issue 2
June 2023
Pages 147-156

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics