Mass transfer in fuel cells. Part I. Models for porous electrodes
- Illinois Inst. of Tech., Chicago
Of particular interest to fuel cell technologists is the mechanism of mass transfer at porous electrodes. Several models are considered for the purpose of developing a working theory for mass transfer in fuel cells employing porous metallic electrodes and highly conductive electrolytes. Completely filled pore and thin-filled pore models are considered. The former is found to yield limiting currents below the experimentally observed range and hence can only be used as a boundary condition for the thin-film model. Several limiting cases for the thin-film model are developed and the relative importance of various physical and kinetic parameters is delineated. It was found that the present calculations for the limiting current agree quite well with those of Austin and Iczkowski for certain values of the parameters. The coupling between the rate of the reaction and voltage (polarization) is developed for an activated process in which the rate determining step is the transfer of electrons. This is combined with the diffusion equation to obtain generalized polarization curves.
- OSTI ID:
- 5022530
- Journal Information:
- Chem. Eng. Prog., Symp. Ser.; (United States), Vol. 63:77
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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