Mohsen Saeidi, Kaivan Mohammadi, MahsaSadat Adel Rastkhiz, Mina Orouji, Mostafa Jamshidian, Stanislav A. Evlashin???????, Jing Bai???????, Abdolreza Simchi

Journal of Power Sources 640 (2025): 236630

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2025.236630

The interplay between bubble release dynamics and surface wettability profoundly influences the performance of water dissociation systems; a topic not well understood. To systematically study the effect of electrode geometry and wettability, we have employed additive manufacturing to fabricate textured 316L-stainless steel electrodes composed of well-arranged pillars with different geometries and hydrophilicity. Through combined experimental and simulation approaches using bubbly flow models, we demonstrate that geometrically-induced wettability significantly affects hydrogen bubble dynamics, transitioning from gas-filled to liquid-filled states, and modulates bubble growth and detachment mechanisms. It is shown that the kinetics of bubble release and the surface coverage on hemispherical-topped pillars can finely be tuned to reduce the transport overpotential by 68.8 % and to increase the Faradaic efficiency (FE) by 191.5 % at ?300 mA cm^?2 relative to untextured electrodes. These findings delineate a pragmatic approach toward the design of textured electrodes for efficient gas-evolving reactions.

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