Measurement of Heat Flow for Contact Resistance and Thermal Conductivity in Fuel Cell Material

Abstract

The thermal conductivity of the component membrane electrode assembly (MEA) and GDL must be estimated in order to better understand the heat transfer processes in the proton exchange membrane fuel cells. Also, to produce the efficient thermal and water management for accurate determination thermal. This is one of the factors affecting the durability of a fuel cell and need to get a solution to minimize costs and optimize the use of electrodes and cells. In this study methodology, it is to estimate the through-plane thermal conductivity of dry Nafion and thermal contact resistance in order of different temperature and pressure. The prediction through-plane thermal technique can be employed using test rig measurement, with slight modification, to estimate through-plane thermal conductivity. Other than that, it is to study the thermal properties and predict the temperature distribution at the test rig during run the experiment. The thermal conductivity of dry Nafion across the specimen with the different temperature is being compared with benchmark result. To validate the result, the Fourier’s law equation has been chosen in this study case with involving the average value of temperature parameter 30°C until 90°C. The parameter temperature at 90°C, thermal conductivity is obtained 0.198W due to the graph of thermal conductivity versus different temperature. Whilst the parameter pressure at 1.2Mpa the thermal conductivity was found 0.471W. From the resulting graph, it can be concluding that the increasing the temperature thermal conductivity of the dry Nafion will be decrease. Also, the thermal conductivity of the dry Nafion decrease when the compression pressure was applied. At the point, it can be summed up as well as dry Nafion is the best material for the application in fuel cell to avoid waste heat generation and temperature distribution that can affect drying and degradation phenomenon in the fuel cell.