(583bt) Scaling of Porous Electrode in Electrochemical Systems: A Volume Averaging Approach

This research focuses on analyzing the species mass transport and electrochemical reactions in porous electrode systems. These systems are of great importance in environmental, energy, and industrial applications e.g. fuel cell electrode, batteries, electrokinetic soil cleaning, etc. The Volume Averaging Theorem, VAT (proposed by Whitaker and others) is employed as the central tool to derive electrode-pore scale and spatially-averaged equations valid for the electrode-domain level. The electrochemical system with and without electrochemical reaction and also in the presence of electromigration is analyzed by using the concepts of species mass conservation equation in conjunction with the VAT. A closure level equation is incorporated into the scaled-up model in order to determine the denominating terms affecting electrochemical processes on the porous electrode domain. Limiting cases will be discussed and compared with results from literature that are currently available but obtained by using other approaches. A strategy to include other situations that are relevant to the problem will be outlined.