Welcome to the Amira-Avizo Software Use Case Gallery

This work describes the performance improvement of a polymer electrolyte fuel cell with a novel class of microporous layers (MPLs) that incorporates hydrophilic additives: one with 30 μm aluminosilicate fibers and another with multiwalled carbon nanotubes with a domain size of 5 μm. Higher current densities at low potentials were observed for cells with the additive-containing MPLs compared to a baseline cell with a conventional MPL, which correlate with improvements in water management. Th... Read more

Growing popularity and rapid development of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) stem for their potential to become a gamechanger in the field of clean power generation technologies.

In this paper, a transient microstructure-oriented numerical simulation of a planar Direct Internal Reforming Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (DIR-SOFC) is delivered. The performance criteria in a direct steam reforming for a fuel starvation scenario are analyzed in order to optimize the underlying process. The proposed t... Read more

4D imaging – the three-dimensional distributions of chemical species determined using multi-energy X-ray tomography – of cathode catalyst layers of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEM-FC) has been measured by scanning transmission x-ray microscopy (STXM) spectro-tomography at the C 1s and F 1s edges. In order to monitor the effects of radiation damage on the composition and 3D structure of the perfluorosulfonic acid (PFSA) ionomer, the same volume was measu... Read more

Carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced significantly to limit the negative consequences of climate change. For this reason, fossil fuels must be replaced by renewable energy sources. However, wind and solar energy, for example, are sporadic sources and, thus, not inevitably available when needed. This results in periods of energy surplus and shortage, which are not necessarily predictable. Hence, energy storage concepts are required to compensate for these fluctuations, thereby retaining en... Read more

A solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) is an electrochemical device that converts the chemical energy of hydrogen directly into electricity. A single cell usually has a form of a flat plate in which an impervious and dense ion-conducting electrolyte is sandwiched between two porous catalytic electrodes: an anode and a cathode. Fuel is fed to the anode side, and the air is supplied to the cathode. The gasses cannot mix to avoid unproductive combustion. Instead, gasses hit catalyst material, lose their... Read more

Catalyst aging effects were analyzed using X-ray absorption micro-computed tomography in combination with conventional characterization methods on various length scales ranging from nm to μm to gain insight into deactivation mechanisms.

For this purpose, a 4 wt% Pt/Al₂O₃ model exhaust gas catalyst was coated on a cordierite honeycomb and subjected to sequential thermal aging in static air at 950 °C for 4, 8, 12 and 24 hours. The ag... Read more

Open-cell foams as structured catalyst supports are promising candidates for the design of high throughput catalytic processes. In this contribution, we employ a coupled numerical and experimental approach to assess the pressure losses in foams. (…) we explore virtually-generated foam models and their 3D printed replicas for a combined CFD and experimental study of fluid dynamics in foams. In particular, we focus our analysis on the low Reynolds number regime, where deviations between t... Read more

Multicomponent Bi-Mo-Fe-Co oxide catalysts prepared via flame spray pyrolysis were tested for selective propylene oxidation, showing high conversion (>70%) and selectivity (>85%) for acrolein and acrylic acid at temperatures of 330 ◦C. During extended time-on-stream tests (5–7 days), the catalysts retained high activity while undergoing diverse structural changes. This was evident on: (a) the atomic scale, using powder X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray absorption spectros... Read more

The most common means of fabricating membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) for polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs) involves a hot-press step. The conditions used to perform the hot-press impacts the performance and durability of the fuel cell.

However, the hot-press process is not essential for achieving operational MEAs and some practitioners dispense with the hot-press stage altogether by using a self-assembled approach. By performing the integration of the components in-situ durin... Read more

Lifetime-limiting failure of fuel cell membranes is generally attributed to their chemical and/or mechanical degradation. Although both of these degradation modes occur concurrently during operational duty cycles, their uncoupled investigations can provide useful insights into their individual characteristics and consequential impacts on the overall membrane failure.

X-ray computed tomography is emerging as an advantageous tool for fuel cell failure analysis due to its non-destructive ... Read more