Analysis and proposition of limiting current density measurement protocol

Limiting current density at different temperatures, backpressures, and balance gases can be used to separate molecular diffusion resistance, Knudsen diffusion resistance and local transport resistance of membrane electrode assembly (MEA). However, the measurement of limiting current density has no unified protocol. The diverse choices in the literature, either in the control of current or voltage or in the atmosphere like relative humidity and O₂ concentrations, make it difficult to compare the results and identify the true bottleneck hindering the mass transport. In this work, the current-voltage curves obtained by current scanning/stepping and voltage scanning/stepping methods under dilute O₂ of different concentrations and a wide range of relative humidity were measured and analyzed systematically. It is found that the voltage stepping method is superior to the other three ways of control for the reliable determination of the limiting current density. Aided with simultaneous electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurement, the limiting current density can be determined with pinpoint accuracy. When the limiting current density is just used to qualitatively evaluate different MEA, the voltage scanning method can be used instead for its high time efficiency. The selection of the atmosphere also plays an important role in suppressing the distortion from excessive water and reducing the spurious contribution from proton conduction resistance. It is found that O₂ concentrations at 0.5 vol% and relative humidity at 90% can give the best estimation of O₂ transport resistance in membrane electrode assembly.     

Electrochemical mass transfer between an impinging jet and a rotating disk in a confined system

This paper presents the mass transfer results from an impinging liquid jet to a rotating disk. The mass transfer coefficients were measured using the electrochemical limiting diffusion current technique (ELDCT). Rotational Reynolds number (Re_r) in the range of 3.4 × 10⁴–1.2 × 10⁵, jet Reynolds number (Re_j) 1.7 × 10⁴–5.3 × 10⁴ and non-dimensional jet-to-disk spacing (H/d) 2–8 were taken into consideration as parameters. It was found that the jet impingement resulted in a substantial enhancement in the mass transfer compared to the case of the rotating disk without jet.     

Polymerization strategies to overcome limiting monomer conversion in silicone-acrylic miniemulsion polymerization

The limiting conversion phenomenon observed in high solid content silicone-modified acrylic miniemulsion polymerizations was investigated. It was found that the limiting conversion was mainly due to the formation of inactive radicals upon propagation of butyl acrylate radicals with the vinyl end groups of the polydimethylsiloxane. Polymerization strategies that allowed overcoming this problem and achieving high monomer conversion were implemented.     

Experimental and numerical study of warm deep drawing of AZ31 magnesium alloy sheet

Warm forming of magnesium alloy sheet has attracted more and more attention in recent years. The formability of magnesium alloy sheet at elevated temperature depends on appropriate processes, and the fabrication of high-performance sheet. In this research, an AZ31 magnesium alloy sheet with excellent performances is fabricated by the cross-rolling and the uniform annealing treatments. The uniaxial tensile tests are conducted using a Gleeble 3500 thermal–mechanical simulator, and the mechanical properties of AZ31 magnesium alloy sheet are analyzed. Finally, some limiting drawing ratio (LDR) experiments are performed. The experiments show that the LDR can reach 2.0 at the forming temperature of 150 °C and the drawing velocity of 15 mm/s. A warm deep drawing process is also simulated by the finite element method. The influences of drawing temperature and blank holder force on the formability are numerically investigated. The simulation demonstrated that variable blank holder force technology can improve the LDR from 3.0 to 3.5, and decrease the wall thinning ratio from 15.21% to 12.35%.     

A model of the behavior of the limiting current oxygen sensors

A physical model describing the I(V) characteristics of planar limiting current oxygen sensors based in an ion-conducting electrolyte is presented. The model focuses on the minimization of the electrochemical potential and the diffusion across a porous layer covering the measuring electrode. The proposed model describes three key phenomena in the response of the sensors: the influence of the polarization resistance on the slope of I(V), the linearity between the limiting current and the diffusivity of the porous layer and a low non-zero current at zero polarization.     

Investigating fuel-cell transport limitations using hydrogen limiting current

Reducing mass-transport losses in polymer-electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs) is essential to increase their power density and reduce overall stack cost. At the same time, cost also motivates the reduction in expensive precious-metal catalysts, which results in higher local transport losses in the catalyst layers. In this paper, we use a hydrogen-pump limiting-current setup to explore the gas-phase transport losses through PEFC catalyst layers and various gas-diffusion and microporous layers. It is shown that the effective diffusivity in the gas-diffusion layers is a strong function of liquid saturation. In addition, it is shown how the catalyst layer unexpectedly contributes significantly to the overall measured transport resistance. This is especially true for low catalyst loadings. It is also shown how the various losses can be separated into different mechanisms including diffusional processes and mass-dependent and independent ones, where the data suggests that a large part of the transport resistance in catalyst layers cannot be attributed to a gas-phase diffusional process. The technique is promising for deconvoluting transport losses in PEFCs.     

Jute and hollow conjugated polyester composites for outdoor & indoor insulation applications

The research work aims at investigating the fitness of jute and hollow conjugated polyester (HCP) composites for indoor and outdoor applications. Limiting oxygen value index, natural weathering exposure was done on four optimized composite structures; i) sandwich structure composite (A); ii) blended non-woven structure composite (B); iii) multiple layers with 5% of low melt polyester added composite (C); (iv) multiple layers of non-woven stitched composite (D) were produced. Their tensile strength, strain at break, and Young’s modulus values were evaluated both before and after the coating of acrylic-based silicon emulsion (ASE). From the experimental results, it is suggested that sample A can be used for an interior trim, sample B can be a base material for interior designing, sample C can replace the usage of wood, plastics, metals, and alloys in hardware applicationsand sample D can be used in interiors as an insulation material in commercial buildings for the purpose of internal cooling or heating.     

Assisted history matching in the presence of frequent well intervention using generalize travel time inversion

In this paper we propose an efficient and novel technique that handles production discontinuities through a resampling of the production data, eliminating high frequency production details in a transformed domain. The technique also reduces non-monotonic behavior and results in a response more suitable for the GTTI based misfit calculations. Our proposed approach has been applied to an offshore turbidite reservoir with extensive well intervention resulting in highly detailed production responses. The static model contains more than three-hundred-thousand cells, complex sand depositional distribution combined with fault structures, four pairs of injector-producers, deviated producing wells and more than 8 years of production history. Previous history matching attempts using traditional approaches had difficulties matching production response at the individual well level. With our proposed modifications to the GTTI approach, a significant improvement was obtained on the well level match quality. Most importantly, by visualizing the streamlines and the dynamic adjustment of flow paths during history matching, we could easily identify the areas of inconsistency between the geologic model and the production data. The calibrated geologic model and streamline trajectories provided important insight about communication within sand channels, differences in flow paths and barriers that have not been included in the previous geologic and seismic interpretation.