Performance Evaluation of Micro PEM Fuel Cell through the Numerical Analysis and Fabrication of Micro-Channel

A fuel cell is most interesting new power source because it solves not only the environment problem but also natural resource exhaustion problem. In this paper, hydrogen gas flow in micro-channel was numerically analyzed about various channel shapes to improve the efficiency of micro fuel cell. Flow characteristics with the same boundary condition were simulated in six different shapes of micro-channels which have been already developed and newly designed as well. The result of analysis shows that characteristics of flow such as velocity, uniformity, and flow rate, depend highly upon the channel shape itself. That means it is expectable to increase the efficiency of micro fuel cell through optimal configuration of channel shape for hydrogen gas flow. Finally, actual micro flow channels were fabricated using SU-8 and the performance of PEM fuel cell was also carried out with these micro prototypes.