Development of sintered porous titanium paper for electrochemical applications

Thin porous titanium sheets or meshes are used as current collectors in Proton Exchange Mem-brane (PEM) fuel cells and electrolyzers. A recently started project attempts to develop an alternative versatile and cheap manufacturing route for such porous titanium sheets. To this end, cost-effective paper technology is applied to produce green sheets from cellulose-based fibers and titanium pow-der. Mixing the powder with the fibers and other additives of various shapes, the pore morphology can be tailored in order to better meet the demands of the application. After debinding and sintering, a purely metallic porous titanium sheet is achieved. Here, the main challenge is the minimization of impurities such as carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. With the help of in-situ infrared spectroscopy and mass spectrometry during the heat treatment, the thermal debinding process can be greatly enhanced and optimized heat treatment procedures can be developed. A suitable measurement set-up has been installed and is briefly explained.