Parametric understanding of vapor transport of hollow fiber membranes for design of a membrane humidifier

摘要

Humidifiers are used to control humidity of the air flowing into the cathode of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell to handle flooding and dehydration phenomena. In this study, a membrane module was tested in a humidifier designed with isothermal condition. While the effect of shell side convection was neglected, diffusive vapor transport was investigated via the impact of operating parameters including temperature, wet side relative humidity, air flow rate, pressure, and flow arrangement. The results show that the temperature and wet side relative humidity have more profound effects than the air flow rate and pressure on the vapor transport rate. The counter-current flow continually showed better performance than the co-current flow when operating at the same conditions. New diffusivity correlations for the membrane module were proposed as functions of temperature, relative humidity, and pressure, with R-square values of about 0.9. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.