Visualization tools, fuel cell

Transparent fuel cells are also common tools used to visualize and observe the water accumulation inside FFs and on the surfaces of diffusion layers. Liu, Guo, and Ma [227] tested interdigitated and parallel flow fields wifh CFP DLs. It was observed that the former FF design enhanced the mass transfer when the gas flow was forced to pass through the DL. In fact, the water flooding areas in the interdigitated channels were substantially smaller than in the parallel channel. 

In this article, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique is described as a diagnostic tool for in-situ visualization of water content in the membrane under fuel cell operation.7-30 Demonstrative applications and measurement procedure using MRI techniques are presented with discussion on water transport involved in PEMFCs. 

All demonstrated by using MRI visualization reported so far shows its unique and strong ability as powerful tools for investigation of water in PEMFCs, which is important for evaluating and optimizing fuel cell materials, components, design and operating conditions. 

The emerging use of microfluidic fuel cells and batteries for analytical applications and educational purposes is also encouraging. The low cost, fabrication flexibility, and unique visualization capabilities inherent to microfluidic cells make them well suited as instructional tools to engage students in the classroom, potentially for a wide variety of courses in the areas of energy conversion and storage, applied chemistry, and microsystems. For analytical applications, standardized units could be produced as a convenient, low-cost platform for in situ lab-scale testing and characterization of electrochemical cell components such as novel electrocatalysts, catalyst supports, and bioelectrodes. Overall, microfluidic electrochemical cells may come to serve equally important functions as analytical and educational tools in addition to commercial utility. 

Additionally, we seek diagnostic tools to understand how the fuel cell performance varies with the location in an individual fuel cell and between fuel cells in a stack. Spatial and cell-to-cell variations in current, temperature, reactant concenhation, and other parameters occur, especially at moderate to high currents and during load transients, and tools are needed which can measure or directly observe these effects. In an operating stack, the number of sensors are Umited due to various cost and size constraints, but laboratory diagnostics are very sophisticated. To understand distributed effects such as flooding in PEFCs or temperature distribution in SOFCs, direct visualization tools and sensors are... 

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