Hydrodynamic modelling of direct methanol liquid feed fuel cell stacks

A model for the liquid feed, direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC), based on the homogeneous two-phase flow theory and mass conservation equation, which describes the hydraulic behaviour of internally manifolded cell stacks, is presented. The model predicts the pressure drop behaviour of the anode side of an individual DMFC cell and is used to determine the channel depth and width for fast and efficient carbon dioxide removal with minimum pressure drop. The model is used to calculate flow distribution through fuel cell stack internal manifolds. The effect of inlet and outlet manifold diameters on flow distribution is also determined. Two types of manifold design are compared, reverse flow and parallel flow. An iterative numerical scheme is used to solve the differential equations for longitudinal momentum and continuity.