CFD Study of a Permeability Measurement Device for Porous Electrodes

Abstract

Porous electrodes are key components in the operation of a vanadium redox flow battery, as they provide physical support for the electrolyte and are responsible for promoting the electrolytic conversion reaction. For this reason, it is essential to know their fluid-dynamic properties in order to model them numerically. Among the physical parameters that characterize them, permeability is one of the most important, as it affects both the pressure drop in the system and the current distribution within the cell. In this work, a computational fluid dynamics study of a permeability measurement device is presented, in which its operation and the homogeneous distribution of the fluid were verified, resulting in a numerical model that allows us to validate future designs prior to their fabrication.