Calculation of Effective Electroconductivity of Porous Electrodes with Pores Partially Filled by a Conductive Liquid

A method for calculating the effective electroconductivity of porous media filled in part by a conductive liquid is suggested. Its principal advantage is the possibility to automate calculations with the aid of a personal computer. Porous electrodes are simulated by a simple cubic lattice of links. A calculation of the dependence of the effective electroconductivity of such structures on the share of conductive links (with each link having a unit resistance) is performed. The calculation stages are as follows. (1) Links of percolation clusters are divided into dead-end links that make no contribution to electroconduction and through links. (2) A percolation cluster is freed of dead-end links and there remains a trunk that consist of through links. (3) A trunk is viewed as a bulk equivalent electric circuit, for which a computer performs the recording of all the Kirchhoff equations. (4) A computer-aided calculation of a set of Kirchhoff equations is performed, which permits the determination of the distribution of potential and current over the thickness of a porous electrode and, in particular, the magnitude of the effective electroconductivity of the porous electrode.