Monday, January 29th at 12:00 p.m., Prof. Aimy Bazylak, Canada Research Chair in Thermofluidics for Clean Energy, will be presenting “Technical Seminar: PEM Fuel Cells and Electrolyzers for Clean Energy”.
Day & Time: Monday, January 29, 2018
12:00 p.m. ‐ 1:30 p.m.
Speaker: Prof. Aimy Bazylak
Canada Research Chair in Thermofluidics for Clean Energy
Director of the University of Toronto Institute for Sustainable Energy
Associate Professor in Mechanical & Industrial Engineering
Location: Peter Bronfman Learning Centre, 7th Floor, Heaslip House, Ryerson University
297 Victoria Street, Toronto,
M5B 1W1, ON, Canada
Contact: Omid Alizadeh
Organizer: IEEE Toronto Power & Energy Society
Agenda: 12:00 pm – Arrival and registration
12:15 pm – Welcome and introduction
12:20 pm – Talk
1:05 pm – Q&A
1:30 pm – 2:00 pm – Closing and networking
Light refreshments will be served.
Abstract: The hydrogen polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell provides enormous potential for a future with clean energy. However, PEM fuel cells and electrolyzers have not yet reached widespread commercial adoption, and key barriers are related to inefficient heat and mass transport in microscale porous materials. Mass transport limitations arising from liquid water flooding in low temperature PEM fuel cells and oxygen gas bubble accumulation in PEM electrolyzers leads to significant inefficiencies. If these issues become resolved, smaller and more reliable devices could be produced at a lower cost. Mass transport limitations can be minimized through the development of optimized materials, which have tailored pore structures, connectivities, conductivities, and surface wettabilities. The porous materials could be customized for mass transport with detailed information about their structure and the dominating mass transport mechanisms that result from these structures. I will discuss X-ray based visualization techniques, such as microcomputed tomography, synchrotron X-ray radiography, and neutron radiography, for investigating multiphase transport in PEM fuel cells and electrolyzers.
Biography: Prof. Aimy Bazylak is the Canada Research Chair in Thermofluidics for Clean Energy; Director of the University of Toronto Institute for Sustainable Energy; and an Associate Professor in Mechanical & Industrial Engineering. Her research is focused on studying microscale and nanoscale materials for tailored heat and mass transport for clean electrochemical energy conversion technologies. In 2014 she became a Fellow of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering, and she was recognized as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow in Germany in 2015.