Thin liquid/gas diffusion layers for high-efficiency hydrogen production from water splitting

By Jingke Mo, Zhenye Kang, Gaoqiang Yang, S. Retterer, David A. Cullen, T. Toops, Johney B. Green, Feng-Yuan Zhang. 2016

163 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In this study, a novel titanium thin LGDL with well-tunable pore morphologies was developed by employing nano-manufacturing and was applied in a standard PEMEC. The LGDL tests show significant performance improvements. The operating voltages required at a current density of 2.0A/cm2 were as low as 1.69V, and its efficiency reached a report high of up to 88%. The new thin and flat LGDL with well-tunable straight pores has been demonstrated to remarkably reduce the ohmic, interfacial and transport losses. In addition, well-tunable features, including pore size, pore shape, pore distribution, and thus porosity and permeability, will be very valuable for developing PEMEC models and for validation of its simulations with optimal and repeatable performance. The LGDL thickness reduction from greater than 350μm of conventional LGDLs to 25μm will greatly decrease the weight and volume of PEMEC stacks, and represents a new direction for future developments of low-cost PEMECs with high performance.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cc7aaf2f9bfcd1a241afe0f2a7a1ca856d4eef85