Improving Fuel Cell Performance
As fuel cell technology for aerospace, transportation, material handling, and backup power systems continues to advance, design engineers are constantly looking for ways to improve efficiency and cost. This has led to costly materials like Nickel, Niobium, Silver, Titanium, and Zirconium frequently being used for electrolyzer, PEM, and SOFC fuel cells. This can get very expensive for traditional chemically etched or perforated materials and increase the weight of the fuel cell. Woven wire mesh materials and other products that require manufactured connection points decrease conductivity and increase resistance across the system resulting in reduced efficiency in the fuel cell. These materials can also shift and move under pressure during fuel cell usage causing changes in the mesh spacing and resulting in even further performance degradation. How can today’s engineers improve the overall design of their next-generation fuel cells?
CThru MeshTM Precision Expanded Metals Increase Fuel Cell Efficiency
CThru MeshTM precision expanded metals reduce fuel cell cost as it produces 90% less waste in the manufacturing process, offers a continuous structure for maximum electrical conductivity across the system, and reduces overall weight while providing additional structural support to reduce flex in the fuel cell membrane resulting in peak output performance. That’s why engineers across the world turn to CThru Metals to help produce their Current Collector Screens, Flow Field Structures, Gas Diffusion Electrodes, and Membrane Support Grids for their latest fuel cell designs.
CThru MeshTM precision expanded metals can be used for many different layers of a fuel cell stack. We can work with you to produce your exact dimensional specifications resulting in the desired conductivity and weight requirements for your fuel cell. CThru MeshTM can be delivered in base thicknesses as thin as 0.0015” and LWO x SWO openings as small as 0.020”. Learn more about how CThru MeshTM expanded metal foil is manufactured or schedule a meeting with our DFM engineering team to get started on your project.