Experimental study on carbon corrosion of the gas diffusion layer in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells

Study on hydrophobicity loss of the gas diffusion layer in PEMFCs by electrochemical oxidation

“…As GDL consisted of PTFE and carbon materials including carbon ber, carbonized thermoset resin and carbon powder, and the carbon materials were not pyrolyzed below 620 C, the mass loss between 500 C and 620 C represented the content of PTFE in the GDL. 26 As shown in Fig. 7, the relative content of PTFE in the fresh GDL was 8.87%, while the content of PTFE in the oxidized GDL was 9.34%.…”

Durable Cathodes and Electrolyzers for the Efficient Aqueous Electrochemical Reduction of CO2

“…Carbon corrosion was also seen to affect PEM water electrolyzers . This failure mode can cause breakage of carbon fibers and increased charge‐transfer resistance . The catalyst bound to the carbon support can also be lost during carbon corrosion, hampering cell performance.…”

A review of the gas diffusion layer in proton exchange membrane fuel cells: Durability and degradation

“…Because MPL assists in the water discharge from catalyst to channel, the water content in the cell with MPL was lower, helping to mitigate the carbon corrosion at the catalyst layer. However, they mentioned that the mass transport is disadvantageous in a cell with MPL because the carbon corrosion is prone to occur at the boundary of the MPL, and other papers [87,88] observed the same phenomena. Consequently, MPL is advantageous in mitigating the carbon corrosion in the catalyst layer; however, the MPL itself is weak against carbon corrosion.…”

“…The EIS results showed that the charge-transfer and mass-transfer resistances of the fuel cell with the oxidized GDL with 1.2 V were approximately 40% and 22% larger than that of the cell with the fresh GDL, respectively. Ha et al [88] introduced an accelerated carbon corrosion test of GDLs by applying 1.45 V with a power supply. They imitated the real operating fuel cell conditions by supplying hydrogen and air and maintaining the temperature of the cell when a 25 cm 2 unit fuel cell generates 1 A/cm 2 .…”