Credit: Illustration by Veronica Chen/LLNL.
For the first time, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory engineers have 3D-printed carbon flow-through electrodes (FTEs) — porous electrodes responsible for the reactions in the reactors — from graphene aerogels. By capitalizing on the design freedom afforded by 3D printing, researchers demonstrated they could tailor the flow in FTEs, dramatically improving mass transfer – the transport of liquid or gas reactants through the electrodes and onto the reactive surfaces.