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Operando Visualization of Water Distribution in Gas Diffusion Media of PEFCs with an Optimized Neutron Grating Interferometer

Siegwart, M. ; Manzi-Orezzoli, V. ; Valsecchi, J. ; Harti, R. P. ; Kagias, M. LU orcid ; Strobl, M. LU ; Grünzweig, C. ; Schmidt, T. J. LU and Boillat, P. (2020) In Journal of the Electrochemical Society 167(6).
Abstract

We demonstrated the use of a neutron grating interferometer setup (nGI) with a significantly improved contrast-to-noise ratio of the operando dark-field (DF) contrast visualization of water in gas diffusion media (GDM). The nGI parameters were optimized in such a way that we could perform DF imaging of a fully operational fuel cell including two GDM layers (anode and cathode side). The DF contrast is sensitive to the size and shape of microstructures and is in principle not influenced by large water clusters present in flow field channels. Thus, DF imaging can be applied to analyze water present in GDM overlapping with channels, which is not possible by attenuation contrast imaging when the cell is placed perpendicular to the beam... (More)

We demonstrated the use of a neutron grating interferometer setup (nGI) with a significantly improved contrast-to-noise ratio of the operando dark-field (DF) contrast visualization of water in gas diffusion media (GDM). The nGI parameters were optimized in such a way that we could perform DF imaging of a fully operational fuel cell including two GDM layers (anode and cathode side). The DF contrast is sensitive to the size and shape of microstructures and is in principle not influenced by large water clusters present in flow field channels. Thus, DF imaging can be applied to analyze water present in GDM overlapping with channels, which is not possible by attenuation contrast imaging when the cell is placed perpendicular to the beam direction. In GDM regions overlapping with ribs the distinction of hydrophilic and hydrophobic areas is facilitated as well compared to attenuation contrast imaging. Finally, we show that disturbing artefacts introduced by moving water clusters in the channels are considerably reduced by applying a golden ratio phase stepping scan strategy.

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author
; ; ; ; ; ; ; and
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Journal of the Electrochemical Society
volume
167
issue
6
article number
064509
publisher
Electrochemical Society
external identifiers
  • scopus:85084671274
ISSN
0013-4651
DOI
10.1149/1945-7111/ab7d92
language
English
LU publication?
no
additional info
Publisher Copyright: © 2020 The Author(s). Published on behalf of The Electrochemical Society by IOP Publishing Limited.
id
af382761-8dd7-4625-9961-cfe3658af111
date added to LUP
2023-11-27 08:59:44
date last changed
2024-06-05 16:04:53
@article{af382761-8dd7-4625-9961-cfe3658af111,
  abstract     = {{<p>We demonstrated the use of a neutron grating interferometer setup (nGI) with a significantly improved contrast-to-noise ratio of the operando dark-field (DF) contrast visualization of water in gas diffusion media (GDM). The nGI parameters were optimized in such a way that we could perform DF imaging of a fully operational fuel cell including two GDM layers (anode and cathode side). The DF contrast is sensitive to the size and shape of microstructures and is in principle not influenced by large water clusters present in flow field channels. Thus, DF imaging can be applied to analyze water present in GDM overlapping with channels, which is not possible by attenuation contrast imaging when the cell is placed perpendicular to the beam direction. In GDM regions overlapping with ribs the distinction of hydrophilic and hydrophobic areas is facilitated as well compared to attenuation contrast imaging. Finally, we show that disturbing artefacts introduced by moving water clusters in the channels are considerably reduced by applying a golden ratio phase stepping scan strategy.</p>}},
  author       = {{Siegwart, M. and Manzi-Orezzoli, V. and Valsecchi, J. and Harti, R. P. and Kagias, M. and Strobl, M. and Grünzweig, C. and Schmidt, T. J. and Boillat, P.}},
  issn         = {{0013-4651}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{01}},
  number       = {{6}},
  publisher    = {{Electrochemical Society}},
  series       = {{Journal of the Electrochemical Society}},
  title        = {{Operando Visualization of Water Distribution in Gas Diffusion Media of PEFCs with an Optimized Neutron Grating Interferometer}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1149/1945-7111/ab7d92}},
  doi          = {{10.1149/1945-7111/ab7d92}},
  volume       = {{167}},
  year         = {{2020}},
}