Jeff Gostick
McGill University, Chemical Engineering, Faculty Member
- Professor Jeff Gostick is currently an Assistant Professor in Chemical Engineering at McGill University in Montreal. ... moreProfessor Jeff Gostick is currently an Assistant Professor in Chemical Engineering at McGill University in Montreal. He received his undergraduate degree from Ryerson University in Toronto in 2000 and his Master’s degree from University of Waterloo in 2002. Prior to beginning his PhD, he worked as a Research Engineer at Teck Resources Inc. on the production of zinc powder and fiber for zinc-air flow batteries and medium-scale alkaline batteries. His PhD work focused on the hydrogen fuel cell. Upon completion of his PhD in 2009 he did 1 year of post-doctoral work at with the US Department of Energy at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, performing ‘cat-scan’ on porous electrode materials. He joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at McGill University in 2010 where he runs the Porous Materials Engineering & Analysis Lab. His current research continues to include fuel cell electrodes in collaboration with industrial partners, but has expanded to include all manner of engineered porous materials ranging from electrospun nanofiber webs for flow battery electrodes and tissue scaffolds, to nanoporous zeolite materials for carbon capture. He is also a lead developer of the open source pore network modeling project OpenPNM (openpnm.org).(Professor Jeff Gostick is currently an Assistant Professor in Chemical Engineering at McGill University in Montreal. He received his undergraduate degree from Ryerson University in Toronto in 2000 and his Master’s degree from University of Waterloo in 2002. Prior to beginning his PhD, he worked as a Research Engineer at Teck Resources Inc. on the production of zinc powder and fiber for zinc-air flow batteries and medium-scale alkaline batteries. His PhD work focused on the hydrogen fuel cell. Upon completion of his PhD in 2009 he did 1 year of post-doctoral work at with the US Department of Energy at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, performing ‘cat-scan’ on porous electrode materials. He joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at McGill University in 2010 where he runs the Porous Materials Engineering & Analysis Lab. His current research continues to include fuel cell electrodes in collaboration with industrial partners, but has expanded to include all manner of engineered porous materials ranging from electrospun nanofiber webs for flow battery electrodes and tissue scaffolds, to nanoporous zeolite materials for carbon capture. He is also a lead developer of the open source pore network modeling project OpenPNM (openpnm.org).)edit
A pore network model has been applied to a both sides of a fuel cell membrane electrode assembly. The model includes gas transport in the gas diffusion layers and catalyst layers, proton transport in the catalyst layers and membrane, and... more
A pore network model has been applied to a both sides of a fuel cell membrane electrode assembly. The model includes gas transport in the gas diffusion layers and catalyst layers, proton transport in the catalyst layers and membrane, and percolation of liquid water. This paper presents an iterative algorithm to simulate a steady state isothermal cell with a 3D pore network model for constant voltage boundary condition. The proposed algorithm provides a simple method to couple the results of the anode and the cathode sides by iteratively solving the uncoupled equations of the transport processes. It was found that local water blockages at the GDL/CL interface not only affect concentration polarization, but also might change ohmic polarization of the cell. Depending on the liquid water configuration in the porous electrodes, the protons generated in the anode need to travel longer paths to reach the active sites of the cathode; consequently, the IR loss will be increased in the presence of liquid water. This finding highlights the strength of pore network models which resolve discrete water blockages in the electrodes.
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ABSTRACT A resistor- and pore-network methodology is used to examine transport of ions in various ion-conducting polymers. The model is used to examine ion conduction in random and correlated (at the mesoscale) distributions of high and... more
ABSTRACT A resistor- and pore-network methodology is used to examine transport of ions in various ion-conducting polymers. The model is used to examine ion conduction in random and correlated (at the mesoscale) distributions of high and low conductive domains showing the impact that defects or different conduction modes have on overall effective conductivity and percolation. The specific case of Nafion is modeled where swelling is accounted for as well as a spatially varying conductivity within the nanodomains. The model is also used to investigate conduction in thin-films, where a substantial drop in conductivity is witnessed for films less than 50 nm thick. The model shows good agreement with experimental data and provides a methodology for efficient multiscale modeling of transport in ion-conducting polymers from the nanoscale morphology through the mesoscale transport pathways to the observable macroscale properties.
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The present generation of membrane materials used in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) requires high humidity to maintain sufficient proton conductivity. Mass transport through the porous electrodes, however, is most... more
The present generation of membrane materials used in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) requires high humidity to maintain sufficient proton conductivity. Mass transport through the porous electrodes, however, is most effective in dry conditions since the presence of liquid water in the pores reduces effective oxygen diffusivity to the catalytic sites. Management of these competing requirements is further complicated
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A method is described for measuring the effective electronic conductivity of porous fuel cell catalyst layers (CLs) as a function of relative humidity (RH). Four formulations of CLs with different carbon black (CB) contents and ionomer... more
A method is described for measuring the effective electronic conductivity of porous fuel cell catalyst layers (CLs) as a function of relative humidity (RH). Four formulations of CLs with different carbon black (CB) contents and ionomer equivalent weights (EWs) were tested. The van der Pauw method was used to measure the sheet resistance (RS), which increased with RH for all samples. The increase was attributed to ionomer swelling upon water uptake, which affects the connectivity of CB aggregates. Greater increases in RS were observed for samples with lower EW, which uptake more water on a mass basis per mass ionomer. Transient RS measurements were taken during absorption and desorption, and the resistance kinetics were fit using a double exponential decay model. No hysteresis was observed, and the absorption and desorption kinetics were virtually symmetric. Thickness measurements were attempted at different RHs, but no discernible changes were observed. This finding led to the concl...
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Research Interests: Engineering, Mass Transfer, Modeling, Performance, Comparative Study, and 14 moreProton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells, Transport Properties, Measurement, Network Theory, CHEMICAL SCIENCES, Concentration polarization, Size Distribution, Operant Conditioning, Relative permeability, Network Model, Capillary Pressure, Water Saturation, Gas Diffusion Layer, and Power Sources
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... One can attempt to account for these effects using the Wenzel and Cassie-Baxter equations [8], but this requires estimates of the roughness and the ratio of solid-to-pore area on the surface, which are not simple to obtain for... more
... One can attempt to account for these effects using the Wenzel and Cassie-Baxter equations [8], but this requires estimates of the roughness and the ratio of solid-to-pore area on the surface, which are not simple to obtain for anisotropic material like fibrous GDMs [9]. Gurau et al. ...
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... Jeff T. Gostick, Marios A. Ioannidis, Mark D. Pritzker, Michael W. Fowler. Abstract. ... XGYang, FYZhang, ALLubawy, and CYWang, Visualization of Liquid Water Transport in a PEFC, Electrochem. Solid-State Lett., 7, A408 (2004). ...
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The condition of liquid water breakthrough at the cathode of polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEMFC) is studied experimentally and data on corresponding water saturation and capillary pressure are provided for gas diffusion layers (GDL)... more
The condition of liquid water breakthrough at the cathode of polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEMFC) is studied experimentally and data on corresponding water saturation and capillary pressure are provided for gas diffusion layers (GDL) with and without a microporous layer (MPL). The data demonstrate that the GDL saturation at water breakthrough is drastically reduced from ca. 25% to ca. 5%