An advanced gas diffusion electrode for high performance phosphoric acid fuel cells

Hara, Noriaki; Tsurumi, Kazunori; Watanabe, Masahiro

doi:10.1016/0022-0728(94)03597-0

Cited by 15 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Beyond the duty of water management, MPL incorporation may have the extra benefit of reducing contact resistance between the GDL and CL, increasing the usable active area of the CL, promoting efficient gas redistribution, and protecting the CL from pinhole formation caused by piercings from the GDL fibers. Amazingly, MPLs have improved PEFC performance consistently in experiments, [183][184][185][186][187][188][189][190][191] with initial empirical optimizations demonstrating increased peak power for composite GDL/MPLs that balance the strengths of high gas permeability and high hydrophobicity. 182 MPL traits that lead to better performance include higher hydrophobicity, General models that compare strictly the difference in PEFC performance between having a MPL and not show that addition of a MPL leads to more uniform membrane hydration and gas and current distribution over the entirety of the PEFC.…”

mentioning

confidence: 85%

Modeling Water Management in Polymer-Electrolyte Fuel Cells

Weber

Balliet

Gunterman

et al. 2008

Modern Aspects of Electrochemistry

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mentioning

confidence: 85%

Modeling Water Management in Polymer-Electrolyte Fuel Cells

Weber

Balliet

Gunterman

et al. 2008

Modern Aspects of Electrochemistry

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“…They found that the one that was more hydrophobic and had larger pores was not as good as the other one, but that it did demonstrate better performance with subsaturated feeds. Hara et al 2 did a similar analysis with MPLs for phosphoric acid FCs. Janssen and Overvelde 3 examined the water balance in operating polymer electrolyte FCs with commercial membrane electrode assemblies with different MPL configurations.…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Different experimental groups have shown that the use of MPLs usually results in FCs that exhibit better performance. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] However, the improvement depends on the operating conditions, and the exact reasons are mainly unknown and unquantified.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Microporous Layers in Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells

Weber

Newman

2005

J. Electrochem. Soc.

511

430

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Our previous models and a catalyst-layer model are combined to study the effects of microporous layers in polymer electrolyte fuel cells. The combined sandwich model is used to fit data both with and without a microporous layer with saturated feed conditions. In terms of water management, the simulations clearly show that the effect of a microporous layer is to keep water out of the cathode gas diffusion layer and move it through the anode. Additional effects of microporous layers include better ohmic behavior and perhaps better catalyst utilization, among other things. Optimizations for different structural parameters are investigated, as are the effects of microporous layers under different operating conditions. The discussion is geared toward how microporous layers increase performance and their effect on fuel cell water management. © 2005 The Electrochemical Society. ͓DOI: 10.1149/1.1861194͔ All rights reserved. In the ongoing search for better-performing fuel cells ͑FCs͒, different design approaches have been used. One such approach that is getting more attention is the use of a bilayer diffusion medium, made up of a hydrophobic-rich microporous layer ͑MPL͒ and a traditional gas diffusion layer ͑GDL͒, in which the MPL is next to the catalyst layer. Different experimental groups have shown that the use of MPLs usually results in FCs that exhibit better performance.1-11 However, the improvement depends on the operating conditions, and the exact reasons are mainly unknown and unquantified.In terms of experimental systems with MPLs, one of the first studies was done by Wilson et al., 1 who studied two different types of MPLs. They found that the one that was more hydrophobic and had larger pores was not as good as the other one, but that it did demonstrate better performance with subsaturated feeds. Hara et al. 2did a similar analysis with MPLs for phosphoric acid FCs. Janssen and Overvelde 3 examined the water balance in operating polymer electrolyte FCs with commercial membrane electrode assemblies with different MPL configurations. Their results showed increased performance with hydrophobic MPLs. For either humidified or dry feeds, the system with a net water flux per proton flux in the membrane closer to zero exhibited better performance. This is undoubtedly due to keeping the membrane hydrated while also reducing the amount of water moving through the cathode diffusion medium.Paganin et al. 4 examined MPLs in which the Teflon content and thickness of the MPLs was altered. Their results demonstrated improvement in the polarization characteristics that depended more on the thickness than on the Teflon percentage. Operation with pure oxygen clearly showed that the enhancement in performance was mainly due to decreased ohmic losses. Passalacqua et al.5 introduced an MPL and operated their system with both oxygen and air. They clearly showed that an MPL improved performance by reducing mass-transport limitations, especially with the air feed, and also by reducing ohmic losses, especially with the oxygen feed....

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“…Typically this is a macroporous substrate layer and microporous layer (MPL) next to the catalyst layer. The MPL serves to provide good contact between the DM and the catalyst layer will also playing a role in cell water and thermal management [44,11,27,14,32,45,13,24,16,25,39]. The MPL is typically dense, with small hydrophobic pores.…”

Section: Application To a Multilayer Diffusion Mediummentioning

confidence: 99%

Using a Quasi-Potential Transformation for Modeling Diffusion Media in Polymer-Electrolyte Fuel Cells

Weber¹,

Newman²

2009

SIAM J. Appl. Math.

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In this paper, a quasipotential approach along with conformal mapping is used to model the diffusion media of a polymer-electrolyte fuel cell. This method provides a series solution that is grid independent and only requires integration along a single boundary to solve the problem.The approach accounts for nonisothermal phenomena, two-phase flow, correct placement of the electronic potential boundary condition, and multilayer media. The method is applied to a cathode diffusion medium to explore the interplay between water and thermal management and performance, the impact of the rib-to-channel ratio, and the existence of diffusion under the rib and flooding phenomena.

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An advanced gas diffusion electrode for high performance phosphoric acid fuel cells

Cited by 15 publications

References 9 publications

Modeling Water Management in Polymer-Electrolyte Fuel Cells

Modeling Water Management in Polymer-Electrolyte Fuel Cells

Effects of Microporous Layers in Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells

Using a Quasi-Potential Transformation for Modeling Diffusion Media in Polymer-Electrolyte Fuel Cells

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