On the role of the microporous layer in PEMFC operation
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Date
2009-03-01
Authors
Gostick, Jeffrey Thomas
Ioannidis, Marios A.
Fowler, Michael W.
Pritzker, Mark D.
Advisor
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier
Abstract
The condition of liquid water breakthrough at the cathode of polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEMFC) is studied experimentally and data on corresponding water saturation and capillary pressure are provided for gas diffusion layers (GDL) with and without a microporous layer (MPL). The data demonstrate that the GDL saturation at water breakthrough is drastically reduced from ca. 25% to ca. 5% in the presence of MPL This observation is consistent with considerations of invasion percolation in finite-size lattices and suggests an explanation for the role of MPL in improving PEMFC performance at high current densities.
Description
The final publication is available at Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.elecom.2008.12.053 © 2017. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Keywords
Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell, Gas diffusion layer, Microporous layer, Water management, Capillary pressure, Percolation