TY - JOUR

T1 - Tailored Porous Transport Layers for Optimal Oxygen Transport in Water Electrolyzers

T2 - Combined Stochastic Reconstruction and Lattice Boltzmann Method

AU - Liu, Jiang

AU - Li, Min

AU - Yang, Yingying

AU - Schlüter, Nicolas

AU - Mimic, Dajan

AU - Schröder, Daniel

N1 - Funding Information: . This work is supported by the China Scholarship Council (CSC No. 202108080162). M. L. and D. M. acknowledge the funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany's Excellence Strategy – EXC 2163/1 – Sustainable and Energy Efficient Aviation – Project‐ID 390881007. D. S. acknowledges funding by the Federal Ministry of Research and Education (BMBF) within project 01DR22006 A. The authors also wish to acknowledge Felix Kerner for providing valuable discussions and suggestions. This work used the supercomputer Phoenix and was supported by the Gauß‐IT‐Zentrum of the Technische Universität Braunschweig (GITZ). We are grateful to the GITZ supercomputer staff. Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL

PY - 2023/9/15

Y1 - 2023/9/15

N2 - The porous transport layer (PTL) plays an integral role for the mass transport in polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolyzers. In this work, a stochastic reconstruction method of titanium felt-based PTLs is applied and combined with the Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). The aim is to parametrically investigate the impact of different PTL structures on the transport of oxygen. The structural characteristics of a reconstructed PTL agree well with experimental investigations. Moreover, the impact of PTL porosity, fiber radius, and anisotropy parameter on the structural characteristics of PTLs are analyzed, and their impact on oxygen transport are elucidated by LBM. Eventually, a customized graded PTL is reconstructed, exhibiting almost optimal mass transport performance for the removal of oxygen. The results show that a higher porosity, larger fiber radius, and smaller anisotropy parameter facilitate the formation of oxygen propagation pathways. By tailoring the fiber characteristics and thus optimizing the PTLs, guidelines for the optimal design and manufacturing can be obtained for large-scale PTLs for electrolyzers.

AB - The porous transport layer (PTL) plays an integral role for the mass transport in polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolyzers. In this work, a stochastic reconstruction method of titanium felt-based PTLs is applied and combined with the Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). The aim is to parametrically investigate the impact of different PTL structures on the transport of oxygen. The structural characteristics of a reconstructed PTL agree well with experimental investigations. Moreover, the impact of PTL porosity, fiber radius, and anisotropy parameter on the structural characteristics of PTLs are analyzed, and their impact on oxygen transport are elucidated by LBM. Eventually, a customized graded PTL is reconstructed, exhibiting almost optimal mass transport performance for the removal of oxygen. The results show that a higher porosity, larger fiber radius, and smaller anisotropy parameter facilitate the formation of oxygen propagation pathways. By tailoring the fiber characteristics and thus optimizing the PTLs, guidelines for the optimal design and manufacturing can be obtained for large-scale PTLs for electrolyzers.

KW - mass transport

KW - microporous materials

KW - pore size distribution

KW - two phase flow

KW - water electrolysis

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85165275555&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/cphc.202300197

DO - 10.1002/cphc.202300197

M3 - Article

C2 - 37402703

AN - SCOPUS:85165275555

VL - 24

JO - CHEMPHYSCHEM

JF - CHEMPHYSCHEM

SN - 1439-4235

IS - 18

M1 - e202300197

ER -