In this paper, three
kinds of carbon fiber papers (CFPs), including
pure CFP, poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE)-treated CFP (PTFE-CFP),
and microporous layer (MPL)-coated CFP (MPL-CFP), were used to investigate
the effects of the surface structure on the water transport behavior
in CFPs. Compared to pure CFP, applying PTFE on the CFP increases
the breakthrough pressure by 0.2 times, while it decreases the water
flow rate at initial penetration by 0.06 times, owing to the strong
hydrophobicity of PTFE-CFP. The pore diameter of MPL-CFP reduces sharply
after coating the MPL, which leads to increasing breakthrough pressure
by 0.6 times. The Young–Laplace equation is applied to study
the relationship between the structure (wettability and pore-size
distribution) of CFPs and the water transport behavior (breakthrough
pressure), and the results show that in addition to wettability and
pore size, the pore-size gradient also plays a crucial role in water
transport.
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