The growing need of sustainable and clean-energy has greatly boosted scientific study in the hydrogen production technologies in Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) electrolyzers. The paper is a multi-phase flow computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis of the flow behaviour in electrolyzer flow channels of PEM. ANSYS Multiphysics is used to examine two different geometrical configurations i.e. serpentine and diamond-shaped channels and the effect of these configurations on pressure distribution, velocity characteristics and system overall performance is studied. The flow water-generated gases interaction in the flow channels is simulated under different flow rate to learn of the transport phenomena and phase interactions. Findings reveal that the diamond shaped channel has lower pressure drop and higher uniformity of flow than the serpentine shape and the serpentine channel has a higher mixing with more stagnation zones. The results would help in optimizing the design of flow channels in order to achieve higher production efficiency of hydrogen and less energy used. This paper offers crucial information on the dynamics of multi-phase flows that are imperative in the development of PEM electrolyzer technology in green hydrogen utilization.

This paper has established that the geometry of flow channels play a great role in determining the performance of PEM electrolyzers. The diamond shaped channel has a high level of lower pressure drop, flow uniformity, and a higher rate of hydrogen production in comparison to serpentine design. The findings point at the need to optimize channel design to improve the behavior of multi-phase flow and the efficiency of the system. These experimental validations and the development of more efficient advanced geometries may be added to future work.

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