Abstract: We study a pore scale model for the catalyst layer on the cathode side of a fuel cell, where hydrogen and oxygen combine at catalyst sites. Our model distinguishes microscopically the phases of rigid structure, electrolyte, pore-space, and catalyst. The oxygen concentration and the protonic potential are described by diffusion equations with reaction terms on the catalyst’s surface. F...

Polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs) are a promising technology for environmentally friendly automobiles, among other applications. However, performance losses due to oxygen transport hindrances in the PEFC’s cathode continue to be an issue in widespread commercialization. This dissertation focuses on the transport of oxygen through the thickness of the PEFC cathode, and the effect of the cat...

the produced liquid water in cathode catalyst layer (ccl) has significant effect on the operation of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (pemfc). to investigate this effect, the transport of oxygen in ccl in the presence of immiscible liquid water is studied applying a two-dimensional pore scale model. the ccl was reconstructed as an agglomerated system. to explore the wettability effects, diffe...

in this paper metal-assisted chemical etching has been applied to pattern porous silicon regions and silicon nanohole arrays in submicron period simply by using positive photoresist as a mask layer. in order to define silicon nanostructures, metal-assisted chemical etching (mace) was carried out with silver catalyst. provided solution (or materiel) in combination with laser interference lithogr...

There is significant interest in broadening the type of catalyst substrates that support the growth of high-quality carbon nanotube (CNT) carpets. In this study, ion beam bombardment has been utilized to modify catalyst substrates for CNT carpet growth. Using a combination of contact angle measurements (CAMs) and X-ray reflectivity (XRR) for the first time, new correlations between the physicoc...

In this article, a two dimensional pore scale model of polymeric fuel cell, which is promising of a clean and renewable energy production, is presented here. Let reactive gases behave as an ideal gas; inhomogeneous anisotropic structure of the gas diffusion layer, is contemplated as a random generated circular porous media. Lattice Boltzmann method is applied to inquire the fluid flow and mass ...