Indirect 3D Printed Electrode Mixers

Abstract

Electrode mixers are ordered 3D flow‐through structures with mixing properties that at the same time act as electrode. Because of their mixing properties, these structures enhance mass transfer at the electrode surface, increasing the limiting‐current plateau. Typically operating at this plateau, the productivity of electrochemical reactors is limited by the mass transport of the reagents. This work presents the fabrication of all‐metal electrode mixers through an indirect 3D printing method. Whereas other techniques suffer from design limitations or come with high capital cost, the proposed rapid prototyping method overcomes these limitations. Using this method, a helical and a cubic electrode mixer was fabricated and their mass transfer properties were characterized and compared to a flat electrode by the limiting current method. Increasing the mass transfer up to 47 % the standard flat electrode is outperformed, demonstrating the valorization potential of electrode mixers and the indirect 3D printing method.

Inertially enhanced mass transport using 3D-printed porous flow-through electrodes with periodic lattice structures

“…There is limited work on porous electrodes generated using additive manufacturing techniques (23)(24)(25). The electrodes in this work exceed the value of km a for previously developed 3Dprinted Ni/SS electrodes (23) by an order of magnitude and for 3D electrodes formed using an indirect 3D-printing method by two orders of magnitude (25).…”

“…This enables precise tuning of the local reactive and hydrodynamic environment to attain greater mass transfer while simultaneously providing the versatility for integration/elimination of other cell components (e.g., current collector, flow field, etc.). Few studies of threedimensional (3D)-printed FTEs manufactured by 3D-printing methods have been reported (23)(24)(25). Further, these were operated in "flow-by" mode (26).…”

“…Further, these were operated in "flow-by" mode (26). The 3D-printed nickel FTEs with simple cubic lattice and periodic structures fabricated by indirect 3D-printing techniques with ≈3.5 mm unit cell sizes showed overall mass transport coefficients close to those of perforated plate electrodes but significantly lower than those of reticulated vitreous carbon (RVC) electrodes (25). The 3D-printed stainless steel electrodes postcoated with Ni with smaller hexagonal lattices and unit cell sizes of ≈1.7 mm attained mass transport coefficients ≈10 times higher than those of 3D-printed nickel FTEs and comparable to those observed in typical RVC electrodes (23).…”

Design, imaging and performance of 3D printed open‐cell architectures for porous electrodes: quantification of surface area and permeability

“…24 The potential for this concept in electrochemical flow cells has been demonstrated by 3D printed stainless steel electrodes coated with nickel (Ni) 3 and molybdenum disulfide (MoS 2 ), 7 and by 3D printed titanium electrodes coated with TiO 2 25 and platinum (Pt). 26 SLM also has been applied to produce helical electrodes, 27 moulds for sintered electrodes 28 as well as static cells for sensors 29 and O 2 evolution. 30 The analysis of 3D printed porous electrodes can be carried out by X-ray computed tomography (CT) in order to estimate or validate their volumetric porosity, solid volume, physical surface area and derived parameters.…”

A 3D Printed Jet Mixer for Centrifugal Microfluidic Platforms

“…Using high-definition MultiJet 3D printing to remake five different passive micromixers has also been reported [51]. The indirect 3D printing method was used to fabricate a helical and a cubic electrode mixer and to increase the mass transfer up to 47% the standard flat electrode by some researchers [52]. The 3D printed modular mixing components operate on the basis of splitting and recombining fluid streams to decrease interstream diffusion length [53].…”