Insight into the basic principle of the water transport plate achieving passive water management in H₂-O₂ proton exchange membrane fuel cells through numerical studies

Flooding is the most predominant problem in $\mathbf{H}_{2}$-O<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf> proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), especially under dead ended anode and cathode (DEAC) operation. By introducing the porous water transport plate (WTP), the liquid can be removed from the cathode chamber to coolant flow via the pathways that the WTP provides. Considering the lack of drainage mechanism for the WTP applied in $\mathrm{H}_{2}-\mathrm{O}_{2}$ PEMFCs for passive water management, this work presents a transient two-dimensional model to investigate the liquid dynamic behaviours inside PEMFCs. The results indicate that a stable and continuous hydraulic connect between the cathode catalyst layer (CCL) and coolant chamber forms under WTP setting, and the pressure difference between the cathode gas chamber and coolant chamber becomes the effective driven force for the liquid drainage.