Journal
ELECTROCHIMICA ACTA
Volume 298, Issue -, Pages 704-708Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.electacta.2018.12.162
Keywords
Wettability; Self-assembled monolayer; Thin/tunable liquid/gas diffusion layers; Bubbles dynamics; Proton exchange membrane electrolyzer cells
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Funding
- U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory [DE-FE0011585]
- National Renewable Energy Laboratory [DE-AC36-08GO28308]
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Wettability of titanium thin/tunable liquid/gas diffusion layers (TT-LGDLs) may affect the oxygen bubble dynamics and detachment process, and impact the performance (cell voltage) in proton exchange membrane electrolyzer cells (PEMECs). In this study, a silane monolayer is applied to tune the TT-LGDL wettability for the first time. The ultra-fast and micro-scale oxygen gas bubble dynamics and the two-phase flow in the channel are studied in situ for hydrophobically treated and hydrophilic titanium thin/tunable LGDLs (TT-LGDLs) with a high-speed and micro-scale visualization system (HMVS). The HMVS shows that the micro oxygen bubbles occur only along the CL/TT-LGDL interfaces at the rim of pores on TT-LGDLs. Bubbles more easily coalescence to form a large one in hydrophobic TT-LGDLs. Pore-scale analysis on the single bubble evolution process shows that the detachment diameter and frequency of oxygen bubbles in the hydrophobic TT-LGDLs are much larger than those in the hydrophilic TT-LGDLs. The PEMEC performance with the hydrophobic and hydrophilic TT-LGDLs are very close under 2.0 A/cm(2), which means that the wettability has limited effect on TT-LGDLs mainly due to their thin features and unique structures with straight pores. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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