University of South Carolina System; University of South Carolina Columbia; National Science & Technology Development Agency - Thailand; National Metal & Materials Technology Center (MTEC); Chiang Mai University
Type
Article
Source Title
ELECTROCHIMICA ACTA
Year
2016
Volume
222
Page
1210-1219
Open Access
Bronze
Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI
10.1016/j.electacta.2016.11.095
Format
PDF
Abstract
The objective of this work is to investigate the design of gas diffusion layer (GDL) for fuel cells that possess specific transport properties. Various types of custom GDLs that have a microporous bilayer (MP) were studied. These GDLs have two different MP layers and a carbon substrate. GDLs with different bilayer MPs designs were tested and the fuel cells performance was investigated. The performance of the fuel cell was measured in-situ with different GDLs at several operating conditions. The pore morphology of the GDLs as well as pore size distribution of the GDLs including the MPs was determined. The data on the pore size distribution including the relationship between tortuosity and porosity was used as model parameters. The experimental data and model predictions confirm that introducing the bilayer MPs on the substrate could improve the transport resistant and increase the performance of PEMFC. The effect of carbon particle size and overall diffusivity also modified the value of MacMullin number and overall thickness of GDL causing the differences in performance and local distributions. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
