EFFICIENT PRODUCTION OF HYDROGEN FROM AQUEOUS METHANOL IN A PEM ELECTROLYSER WITH SINTERED METAL POWDER POROUS FLOW FIELDS

This paper presents the studies carried out on electrolysis of aqueous methanol for hydrogen production in a proton exchange membrane electrolyser with a novel porous flow field made of sintered metal powder. Results show that the use of porous flow field has a significant improvement in hydrogen production performance compared to a groove flow field. This could be attributed to an increase in effective electrode area and to a reduction in diffusion polarization by using the porous material which enables the flow field to supply reactants evenly to the electrode and also removes carbon dioxide smoothly. Influences of the operating conditions such as methanol concentration and cell temperature on hydrogen production are also discussed.