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Gas Diffusion Layers in Fuel Cells and Electrolysers: A Novel Semi-Empirical Model to Predict Electrical Conductivity of Sintered Metal Fibres Omrani, R and Shabani, B 2019, 'Gas Diffusion Layers in Fuel Cells and Electrolysers: A Novel Semi-Empirical Model to Predict Electrical Conductivity of Sintered Metal Fibres', Energies, vol. 12, no. 5, 855, pp. 1-17. Document type: Journal Article Collection: Journal Articles Title Gas Diffusion Layers in Fuel Cells and Electrolysers: A Novel Semi-Empirical Model to Predict Electrical Conductivity of Sintered Metal Fibres Author(s) Omrani, R Shabani, B Year 2019 Journal name Energies Volume number 12 Issue number 5 Article Number 855 Start page 1 End page 17 Total pages 17 Publisher MDPI Abstract This paper introduces novel empirical as well as modified models to predict the electrical conductivity of sintered metal fibres and closed-cell foams. These models provide a significant improvement over the existing models and reduce the maximum relative error from as high as just over 30% down to about 10%. Also, it is shown that these models provide a noticeable improvement for closed-cell metal foams. However, the estimation of electrical conductivity of open-cell metal foams was improved marginally over previous models. Sintered porous metals are widely used in electrochemical devices such as water electrolysers, unitised regenerative fuel cells (URFCs) as gas diffusion layers (GDLs), and batteries. Having a more accurate prediction of electrical conductivity based on variation by porosity helps in better modelling of such devices and hence achieving improved designs. The models presented in this paper are fitted to the experimental results in order to highlight the difference between the conductivity of sintered metal fibres and metal foams. It is shown that the critical porosity (maximum achievable porosity) can play an important role in sintered metal fibres to predict the electrical conductivity whereas its effect is not significant in open-cell metal foams. Based on the models, the electrical conductivity reaches zero value at 95% porosity rather than 100% for sintered metal fibres. Subject Energy Generation, Conversion and Storage Engineering Keyword(s) Porous metal Porosity Sintered metal fibre Metal foam Electrical conductivity Electrochemical Fuel cell DOI - identifier 10.3390/en12050855 Copyright notice © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). ISSN 1996-1073 Related Links Link Description https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/en12050855 Link to Published Version   Versions Version Filter Type Tue, 26 Mar 2019, 15:39:15 EST Wed, 07 Aug 2019, 15:03:55 EST Filtered Full Citation counts:   Cited 2 times in Thomson Reuters Web of Science Article | Citations Cited 0 times in Scopus Article Altmetric details: Access Statistics: 27 Abstract Views  -  Detailed Statistics Created: Tue, 26 Mar 2019, 09:36:00 EST by Catalyst Administrator