Mass Transfer Performance of Porous Nickel Manufactured by Lost Carbonate Sintering Process

Open cell porous metals are excellent electrode materials due to their unique electrochemical properties. However, very little research has been conducted to date on the mass transport of porous metals manufactured by the space holder methods, which have distinctive porous structures. This paper measures the mass transfer coefficient of porous nickel manufactured by the Lost Carbonate Sintering process. For porous nickel samples with a porosity of 0.55–0.75 and a pore size of 250–1500 μm measured at an electrolyte flow velocity of 1–12 cm s⁻¹, the mass transfer coefficient is in the range of 0.0007–0.014 cm s⁻¹, which is up to seven times higher than that of a solid nickel plate electrode. The mass transfer coefficient increases with pore size but decreases with porosity. The porous nickel has Sherwood numbers considerably higher than the other nickel electrodes reported in the literature, due to its high real surface area and its tortuous porous structure, which promotes turbulent flow.