Numerical Model of a Single Phase, Regenerative Fuel Cell

A code for numerical simulating the fluid flow and electrochemistry of a single phase regenerative fuel cell is presented. Due to the potentially tiny geometries and complex multi-physical interactions, modeling presents a chance to obtain detailed quantitative data and much needed understanding about physics within the reactor. The Regenesys XL200 fuel cell has the industrial application of large scale energy storage and is the focus of this work. A two dimensional, binary reduction reaction system has been created to represent the XL200 and test the code. Commercially available CFD software Fluent was used to calculate the flow field and subroutines were used to create the dynamic calculation of electrochemistry at the reaction surface. The effect of changing the total applied potential across the domain on the potential and species concentration distribution within the domain was investigated. Results show that the code is producing qualitatively feasible results that represent the tight multi-physical coupling. The code is currently not validated against physical experimental results and this will be the focus of future work.