Achievement

A materials engineering student, William Gathright, has leveraged modeling techniques from one discipline (metallurgy) and applied them to another (electrochemistry) by creating a diffuse interface thermodynamic model of ion transport and chemical reactions in solid-oxide fuel cells. This research has been accepted for publication in Electrochemisty Communications. Furthermore, the model has been extended into the investigation of the underlying science behind electrochemical impedance spectroscopy a technique widely used in the research of PEM and SOFC fuel cells. Using relatively simple assumptions, rich electrochemical behavior has been recreated.