Reducing the global burden of disease attributed to unsafe drinking water, i.e. water that is free from e.g. arsenic and microbial contaminants, requires interventions at multiple levels. These include technical...
Water resources and energy are essential components of sustainable development, yet reverse osmosis (RO) desalination systems remain constrained by high energy demand arising from feed pressure requirements and membrane fouling....
Manganese‑oxidizing bacteria (MnOB) demonstrate great potential in degrading many organic contaminants but their performance across a broad spectrum of contaminants still awaits further investigation and their population stability in treating...
A Mg-loaded chitosan carbonized microsphere removed 92.97% of phosphate and 12.22% of ammonium from untreated slaughterhouse wastewater. Phosphate-focused removal with concurrent ammonium uptake may reduce nutrient loads on downstream treatment.
Driven by the advancement of low-carbon seawater utilization and the expansion of offshore green hydrogen production, high-temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) have emerged as a pivotal technology due to their zero-emission potential. However, non-uniform thermal and electrical fields can accelerate local degradation and shorten fuel cell durability. To address this issue, a new composite bipolar plate structure is proposed to improve thermal-electrical uniformity. The design integrates a polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) flow field plate with a perforated heat spreader of high thermal and electrical conductivity, to improve both thermal management and electrical conduction. A three-dimensional non-isothermal fuel cell model was developed to evaluate the effects of the proposed structure on temperature difference, proton conductivity, activation overpotential, and current density distribution. The results show that the perforated heat spreader improves heat dissipation, reducing the maximum internal temperature difference from 16.4 K to 4.3 K. Current-density uniformity increases from 52.8% to 72.1%. The proposed composite bipolar plate increases the peak power density from 0.324 W cm-2 for the conventional bipolar plate configuration to 0.384 W cm-2. Optimization of the perforation size in the anode and cathode heat spreaders further increases the peak power density to 0.425 W cm-2.The composite design also indicates potential for further improvement in volumetric and gravimetric power densities through structural and lightweight optimization. Overall, the numerical results demonstrate the feasibility and performance benefits of integrating a PTFE flow-field plate with a perforated heat spreader for improving thermal-electrical uniformity and output performance in high-temperature PEMFCs.
