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X-ray CT-based numerical investigation of nickel foam-based GDLs under compression

Ercelik, Mustafa; Ismail, Mohammed S.; Hughes, Kevin J.; Ingham, Derek B.; Ma, Lin; Pourkashanian, Mohamed

Authors

Mustafa Ercelik

Profile image of Mohammed Ismail

Dr Mohammed Ismail m.s.ismail@hull.ac.uk
Senior Lecturer - Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies

Kevin J. Hughes

Derek B. Ingham

Lin Ma

Mohamed Pourkashanian



Abstract

Nickel foams feature superior structural and transport characteristics and are therefore strong candidates to be used as gas diffusion layers (GDLs) in polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs). In this work, the impact of compression on the key structural and transport properties has been investigated, including employing a specially designed compression apparatus and X-ray computed tomography. Namely, 20 equally spaced two-dimensional CT based images and numerical models have been used/developed to investigate the sensitivity of the key properties of nickel foams (porosity, tortuosity, pore size, ligament thickness, specific surface area, gas permeability and effective diffusivity) to realistic compressions normally experienced in PEFCs. Wherever applicable, the anisotropy in the property has been investigated. One of the notable findings is that, unlike porosity and ligament thickness, the mean pore size was found to decrease significantly with compression. The mean pore size is around 175 μm for uncompressed nickel foam and it decreased to around 110 μm for a 20% compression ratio and to around 70 μm for a 40% compression ratio. Further, unlike the effective diffusivity, the gas permeability was shown to be highly anisotropic with compression; this fact is of particular importance for PEFC modelling where the properties of GDLs are often assumed isotropic. All the computationally estimated properties have been presented, validated and discussed.

Citation

Ercelik, M., Ismail, M. S., Hughes, K. J., Ingham, D. B., Ma, L., & Pourkashanian, M. (2024). X-ray CT-based numerical investigation of nickel foam-based GDLs under compression. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 50(Part B), 1338-1357. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2023.07.001

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jul 1, 2023
Online Publication Date Jul 20, 2023
Publication Date Jan 2, 2024
Deposit Date Jul 22, 2023
Publicly Available Date Dec 11, 2023
Journal International Journal of Hydrogen Energy
Print ISSN 0360-3199
Publisher Elsevier
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 50
Issue Part B
Pages 1338-1357
DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2023.07.001
Keywords Polymer electrolyte fuel cell; Gas diffusion layer; Nickel foam; X-ray computed tomography; Compression; Structural and transport characteristics
Public URL https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4342293

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Copyright Statement
© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).




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