The present disclosure provides advantageous porous assemblies, and improved systems and methods for utilizing and/or fabricating the porous assemblies. More particularly, the present disclosure provides porous assemblies fabricated at least in part by additive manufacturing (e.g., via a 3D printing process, such as, for example, via an electron beam additive manufacturing process, via a laser additive manufacturing technology, via an inkjet or a binder jet additive manufacturing process, etc.), the porous assemblies including a porous monolith support structure or substrate for a sensitive or active layer of a multi-layer application (e.g., for sensitive/active layers in fuel cell/electrolyzer/battery and other multi-layer applications).

A gas diffusion layer for proton exchange membrane fuel cell and preparation method thereof are provided. The preparation method is to papermake and dry carbon fiber suspension mainly composed of a fibrous binder, water, a dispersant and carbon fibers with different aspect ratios to obtain a carbon fiber base paper, and then carbonize and graphitize under the protection of nitrogen or inert gas to obtain a gas diffusion layer for proton exchange membrane fuel cell; where the fibrous binder is a composite fiber or a blend fiber composed of a phenolic resin and other resin; where the prepared gas diffusion layer for proton exchange membrane fuel cell has a pore gradient, and the layer with the smallest pore size is an intrinsic microporous layer.

Disclosed are an electrode including a porous substrate, a membrane-electrode assembly for a fuel cell including the same and a method of manufacturing the same. In the method of manufacturing the membrane-electrode assembly, the amount of a catalyst that is loaded depending on the position is applied in a gradational manner, thus efficiently using the catalyst, thereby reducing costs owing to the use of a decreased amount of the metal catalyst. Further, the membrane-electrode assembly includes the electrode including a porous substrate, thus making it easy to select hot-pressing conditions and increasing processing efficiency. The porous substrate is hydrophobic and the pore size in the electrode is not decreased compared to conventional electrodes, thus reducing flooding and generating various operation regions. The electrode including the porous substrate can minimize electrode loss, thus improving electrode durability.

An illustrative fuel cell component includes a body that has a plurality of first pores. The first pores have a first pore size. A fluorinated carbon coating is on at least some of the body. The coating establishes a plurality of second pores in a coated portion of the body. The second pores have a second pore size that is smaller than the first pore size.

Disclosed is a solid oxide fuel cell including an electrode-electrolyte assembly and an interconnect in communication with the electrode-electrolyte assembly, wherein the interconnect comprises a carbon matrix composite.

An electrode structure of a flow battery. A density of the vertical tow in the electrode fiber is larger than the density of the parallel tow. In the electrode fiber per unit volume, the quantity ratio of the vertical tow to the parallel tow is at least 6:4. The electrode structure includes an odd number of layers of the electrode fibers, and the porosity of other layers is larger than that of the center layer. The electrode structure includes the vertical tows, so that, the contact area between the outer surface of the electrode and the adjacent component is increased and the contact resistance is reduced; the electrode has good mechanical properties; the contact resistance of such structure is reduced by 30%-50%; and the layers of the electrode have different thickness depending on the porosity. After compression, the layers with optimized thickness have a consistent porosity.

The design and method of fabrication of a three-dimensional, porous flow structure for use in a high differential pressure electrochemical cell is described. The flow structure is formed by compacting a highly porous metallic substrate and laminating at least one micro-porous material layer onto the compacted substrate. The flow structure provides void volume greater than about 55% and yield strength greater than about 12,000 psi. In one embodiment, the flow structure comprises a porosity gradient towards the electrolyte membrane, which helps in redistributing mechanical load from the electrolyte membrane throughout the structural elements of the open, porous flow structure, while simultaneously maintaining sufficient fluid permeability and electrical conductivity through the flow structure.

The invention relates to an electrode for an electrochemical cell, wherein an electrode is flatly applied onto a surface of a solid oxide electrolyte, and a cathode is flatly applied onto the solid oxide electrolyte surface opposite the electrode. The base material of the electrode is a composite whose catalytically active metal component contains a nickel phase which is made of NiO as part of the electrode starting material by reducing the NiO in a hydrogen-containing atmosphere. The ceramic component is made with a doped cerium oxide and a spinel made of at least one transition metal selected from Ni, Mn, Fe, and Cr.

A gas diffusion electrode including: a conductive porous substrate and a microporous layer on at least one side of the conductive porous substrate; in which the total of regions passing through the microporous layer in the thickness direction has an area ratio of 0.1% or more and 1% or less; and in which the microporous layer has a portion that has penetrated into the conductive porous substrate (hereinafter referred to as penetration portion), the penetration portion having a thickness ratio of 30% or more and 70% or less with respect to 100% of the thickness of the microporous layer. The gas diffusion electrode used for fuel cells affords fuel cells having high water removal performance and high power generation performance.

A cathode configured to use oxygen as a cathode active material, the cathode including: a porous film, wherein the porous film includes a metal oxide, and wherein a surface of the porous film has root mean square (RMS) roughness (Rq) of about 0.01 micrometer to about 1 micrometer, and a porosity of the porous film is about 50 volume percent to about 99 volume percent, based on a total volume of the porous film.