Abstract
Current energy policies require the urgent replacement of fossil energy carriers by carbon neutral ones, such as hydrogen. The backing or micro-porous layer plays an important role in the performance of hydrogen proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells, reducing contact resistance and improving reactant/product management. Such carbon-based coating cannot be used in PEM electrolysis since it oxidizes to CO2 at high voltages. A functional titanium macro-porous layer (MPL) on the current collectors of a PEM electrolyzer is developed by thermal spraying. It improves the contact with the catalyst layers by ca. 20 mΩ cm2, increasing significantly the efficiency of the device when operating at high current densities.
Highlights
Hydrogen can be used as a carbon neutral energy carrier either to provide electricity through fuel cells or to store the surplus coming from renewable sources such as solar or wind by means of water electrolysis systems [1]
The current collector (CC) of a Proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzer consists of a porous structure of titanium such as a sintered disc, foam, felt or expanded mesh [3]
It was found that two layers of titanium produced a leakage rate (LR) of 480 mbar l cm-2 s-1
Summary
Hydrogen can be used as a carbon neutral energy carrier either to provide electricity through fuel cells or to store the surplus coming from renewable sources such as solar or wind by means of water electrolysis systems [1]. Arbabi et al used a technique of visualization of air injection into the liquid-saturated porous network of microfluidic chips in order to simulate the transport mechanism of gas bubbles in the CC [7,8] They found that transport mechanism of air bubbles in the CC is capillary-dominated even at high current densities. Their results showed that gas saturation at the breakthrough moment is smaller for felts than for the sintered discs. In the case of a PEM fuel cell this problem is solved by introducing a backing or micro-porous layer between the catalytic layer and the carbon CC or GDL [11,12] It lowers the ohmic losses by keeping the membrane better hydrated improving the adhesion and contact between the various conductive components, such as carbon [11]. We provide an approach for developing a titanium macro-porous layer (MPL) produced vacuum plasma spraying (VPS) on the CC of a PEM electrolyzer
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