On the afternoon of March 21st, 2022, Dr. Quentin Meyer from the University of New South Wales in Australia has held an online lecture on "Structure-to-performance relationship of hydrogen fuel cells" for ICARE students.
In 2015, Dr. Quentin Meyer received a doctor degree in Chemical Engineering from University College London, UK, with an Award for Research Excellence. In February 2021, he won the Young Electrochemist Award for Australia-New Zealand for his achievements since his PhD. By March 2022, Dr. Quentin Meyer has published about 40 articles in scientific journals, applied for one patent, and has presented his work 20 times around the world.
After a brief introduction to hydrogen fuel cells, Dr. Quentin Meyer focused on the interaction between the internal performance and the structure of hydrogen fuel cells.
By measuring the water, current density, and temperature during the operation of the cell, one can obtain the hydro-electro-thermal (water-electricity-heat) map, and then explore the correlation between several variables in the proton exchange membrane fuel cell, so that researchers can gain a better understanding of hydrogen fuel cells to improve their operations. After that, Dr. Quentin Meyer introduced advanced imaging techniques such as X-ray computed tomography to study material deformation which allows to reveal the macro and microstructure evolution of proton exchange membrane fuel cells materials during assembly and operation.
At the end of the lecture, the students raised several relevant questions about the possible obstacles to the use of hydrogen fuel cells in the future, which Dr. Quentin Meyer addressed one-by-one. Through this lecture, ICARE students have gained a deeper understanding of the relationship between the structure and performance of hydrogen fuel cells and acquired valuable knowledge for their future studies in the energy field.
