Modelling the Catalytic Layer of a PEM Fuel Cell with Adsorption-Desorption Kinetics
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The cathodic catalytic layer of a PEM fuel cell has been described by a reaction-diffusion model with first-order kinetics. The reactant consumption through the whole layer, as well as the current intensity delivered by the fuel cell, is shown to depend simply on the hyperbolic tangent of the corresponding Damköhler number. By using the effective diffusion coefficient of the reactant as the fitting parameter, a suitable fit of the experimental results to a tanh-law in terms of the square root of the Damköler number has been achieved. The model has been extended to account for the absorption-desorption kinetics of the reactant on the catalytic sites.