Rupak Banerjee

Porous Transport Layer Related Mass Transport Losses in Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Electrolysis: A Review

The unintended accumulation of oxygen gas in polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolyzers has been recently identified as one of the main hurdles to achieving high cell efficiencies. Oxygen is a by-product of the electrochemical reaction used to produce hydrogen, and this oxygen must be removed in order to reduce mass transport losses. The porous transport layer (PTL) is a key component of the PEM electrolyzer which facilitates mass transport and electrical conductance. However, oxygen bubble accumulation potentially dominates the total mass transport losses during operation. Many experimental and computational studies have been performed in an attempt to understand the relationship between the morphology of the PTL and the voltage loss of the electrolyzer, but this relationship has yet to be fully defined. In this work, efforts towards identifying and understanding mass transport losses are discussed. PTL structural parameters that were shown to affect performance, such as bulk porosity, particle size, pore size, thickness, and permeability are reviewed. Visualization techniques that have been employed to investigate the behavior of oxygen bubbles are also discussed. This work presents a summary of the studies which have been performed to investigate the key parameters of the PTL that should be tailored for improved PEM electrolyzer performance.Copyright

Effect of Temperature on In-Plane Permeability of the Gas Diffusion Layer of PEM Fuel Cell

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Modeling the Effect of Fibre Surface Morphology on Liquid Water Transport in Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell Gas Diffusion Layers

In this work, we present a novel methodology for incorporating the effect of fibre surface morphology on liquid water transport in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell gas diffusion layers (GDLs). Roughness features presented on the surface of the fibre are analysed using atomic force microscopy and are found to significantly impact the capillary pressure of liquid water pathways propagating through the GDL. A threshold capillary pressure was defined as the largest capillary pressure exhibited by the liquid water phase during the invasion of the throat. The threshold capillary pressures observed in the presence of roughness features are significantly greater than those in the absence of roughness features. Two-dimensional circumferential roughness models in cylindrical and converging-diverging throats are established, and an interfacial meniscus advancing algorithm is presented to determine the resulting threshold capillary pressures required for liquid water penetration. Revised Young–Laplace equations, which are particularly useful for pore network modeling, are suggested for calculating threshold capillary pressures that account for the effect of the roughness of throats with intrinsic contact angles greater than

Two-phase flow in GDL and reactant channels of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell

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In situ analysis of voltage degradation in a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell with a dead-ended anode

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