Current distribution in porous electrodes operating under forced flow

✍ Scribed by S. Szpak; J.D. Elwin; T. Katan

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1966
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 374 KB
• Volume: 11
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0013-4686
• DOI: 10.1016/0013-4686(66)87071-8

✦ Synopsis

PRACTICAL considerations in the construction of electrochemical energy conversion devices, operating with a continuous supply of reactant and removal of products, necessitate high current densities at low overpotentials, Hence, the current distribution within the porous electrode structure and the effects of geometry and the mode of operation on the current distribution are of considerable interest.

The usual procedure in the determination of various distribution functions, eg current, potential and concentration of reactant(s) and product(s), invokes the laws of conservation of mass and charge. 1 Thus, the distribution functions depend on the manner in which the transport of reactant to the metal/solution interface takes place and on the type of overpotential/current relationship governing the charge transfer process. Several cases, usually involving restrictive assumptions, have been treated in the past years.= This communication considers the case where the reactant is passed through the porous structure by forced flow and offers the experimentally observed current distributions for the reduction of ferricyanide ion, oxidation of hydrazine and ethylene in potassium hydroxide solution.