Numerical Investigation of the Performance of a Proton Exchange Membrane Water Electrolyzer under Various Outlet Manifold Structure Conditions

The oxygen discharge process significantly affects the electrochemical performance of a proton exchange membrane water electrolyzer (PEMWE), which requires an optimal structure of the flow field implemented in the bipolar plate (BP) component. In this study, we numerically investigated the two-phase (liquid water and oxygen) flow in the PEMWE’s channel region with different outlet manifold structures utilizing the volume of fluid (VOF) model. Then, the oxygen volume fraction at the liquid/gas diffusion layer (L/GDL) surface, i.e., the interface of the channel and L/GDL, obtained by the liquid water and oxygen flow model was incorporated into a three-dimensional (3D) PEMWE model, which made it possible to predict the influence of the outlet manifold structure on the multiple transfers inside the whole electrolyzer as well as the electrochemical performance. The results indicate that the existence of oxygen in the flow field significantly decreased the electrolyzer voltage at a fixed operation current density and deteriorated the uniform distribution of the oxygen amount, current density (corresponding to the electrochemical reaction rate) and temperature in the membrane electrode assembly (MEA), indicating that the rapid oxygen removal from the flow field is preferred in the operation of the electrolyzer. Moreover, slight increases in the width of the outlet manifold were helpful in relieving the oxygen accumulation in the anode CL and, hence, improved the electrolyzer performance with more uniform distribution characteristics.