Thermal Behaviour of Hybrid Nanofluids in Water: Bio Glycol Mixture in Cooling Plates of PEMFC

Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) is a renewable technology application for vehicle power sources that is a viable challenger for a safe and efficient power generation. Nanofluids adoption is one of the advancements in PEMFC heat management. In addition to that, Bio Glycol is also introduced as a non-toxic, renewable fluid with 30% lower viscosity than regular petroleum-derived propylene glycol at low temperatures. The 0.5% volume concentration of hybrid nanofluids of Aluminium Oxide (Al2O3) and Silicon Dioxide (SiO2) in water:BG at 60:40 volume ratio was investigated in this work. This paper investigated the heat transfer improvement and the pumping power effect in mini channel of PEMFC distributor and serpentine cooling plate with the adoption of hybrid Al2O3 and SiO2 nanoparticles in water: Bio Glycol (BG). The simulation conducted using ANSYS Fluent, under laminar region of 300 to 1800 and constant heat flux of 6500 (W/m2) to imitate the heat generation in a PEMFC bipolar plate. The : ratios used were 10:90, 30:70, 50:50, and 70:30. The findings suggested that : (30:70) in water: BG provides the highest improvement of 14.4% in the serpentine cooling plate and 20.9% in the distributor cooling plate at Re 1800. However, the pressure drop for both plates was increased up to 7 times greater than the base fluid. The advantage ratio was then calculated to assess the feasibility of nanofluids in PEMFC cooling plates. As a conclusion it was recommended that the serpentine cooling plate outperforms the distributor cooling plate in terms of both heat transfer and pumping power need