Microfluidic chips for investigating multiphase transport in porous media

聚合物电解质膜(PEM)电解槽的功能是将电和水转化为氢和氧，而PEM燃料电池(PEMFC)则执行相反的任务。通过这两项技术，氢气提供了其他燃料无法比拟的优势，因为它们在运行过程中不会产生二氧化碳和其他温室气体(GHG)排放。然而，为了尽可能有效地运行这些技术，必须迅速去除副产品，以防止反应物流向反应现场。Loop Energy最近开发了一种最先进的PEMFC设计并获得了专利，名为eFlow，与传统燃料电池产品相比，该设计将PEMFC的成本降低了30%。然而，LoopEnergy想知道他们的eFlow设计的哪些方面可以转化为PEM电解槽，以及哪些方面需要专门为新的应用量身定做。多伦多大学的Bazylak博士的团队将通过生产统计上等效的多孔芯片实验室来研究这个问题，这种实验室再现了PEM电解槽的环境。通过使用基于荧光显微镜的成像，Bazylak博士的团队将能够可视化液态水/气态空气界面与固体颗粒的相互作用，以及随着入口水流量和通道设计的变化，与非湿润的气态空气侵入相关的孔与孔之间的相互作用。这些基础性研究将被用来直接洞察用于去除氧泡的通道流设计的适用性，从而将PEM电解槽的成本降低到具有竞争力的水平。

The polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolyzer functions by converting electricity and water intohydrogen and oxygen, whereas the PEM fuel cell (PEMFC) performs the opposite task. Through these twotechnologies, hydrogen offers unparalleled advantages over other fuels, because carbon dioxide and othergreenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are not produced during their operation. However, for these technologies tooperate as efficiently as possible, the by-products must be quickly removed to prevent any hindrance to theflow of reactants to the reaction sites.Recently Loop Energy has developed and patented a state-of-the-art PEMFC design, named the eFlow, whichhas reduced the cost of the PEMFC by 30% in comparison to traditional fuel cell products. However, LoopEnergy would like to know which aspects of their eFlow design could be translated to a PEM electrolyzer, andwhich will need to be specifically tailored to the new application. Dr. Bazylak's group at the University ofToronto will examine this question by producing statistically equivalent porous lab-on-chips, which reproducethe PEM electrolyzer's environment. Through use of fluorescence microscopy-based imaging, Dr. Bazylak'sgroup will be able to visualize the interactions of the liquid water/gaseous air interface with the solid particles,and the pore-to-pore interactions associated with non-wetting gaseous air invasion as the inlet water flow rateand the channel designs are varied. These fundamental studies will be used to provide direct insight into theapplicability of channel flow design for oxygen bubble removal for driving PEM electrolyzer costs down tocompetitive levels.