Tailored Porous Transport Layers for Optimal Oxygen Transport in Water Electrolyzers: Combined Stochastic Reconstruction and Lattice Boltzmann Method

The porous transport layer (PTL) plays an integral role for the mass transport in polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolyzers. In this work, a stochastic reconstruction method of titanium felt-based PTLs is applied and combined with the Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). The aim is to parametrically investigate the impact of different PTL structures on the transport of oxygen. The structural characteristics of a reconstructed PTL agree well with experimental investigations. Moreover, the impact of PTL porosity, fiber radius, and anisotropy parameter on the structural characteristics of PTLs are analyzed, and their impact on oxygen transport are elucidated by LBM. Eventually, a customized graded PTL is reconstructed, exhibiting almost optimal mass transport performance for the removal of oxygen. The results show that a higher porosity, larger fiber radius, and smaller anisotropy parameter facilitate the formation of oxygen propagation pathways. By tailoring the fiber characteristics and thus optimizing the PTLs, guidelines for the optimal design and manufacturing can be obtained for large-scale PTLs for electrolyzers.