The in-plane thermal conductivity and the contact resistance of the components of the membrane electrode assembly in proton exchange membrane fuel cells
“…the direction normal to the catalyst layer. It is noteworthy that the relatively higher through-plane GDL resistance has been demonstrated to other modes of transport in our previous investigations, namely mass convection [10e12], electrical conduction [13] and thermal conduction [14,15]. In this paper, we review the investigations that have been conducted to estimate the effective diffusivity of the porous layers in PEFCs, particularly the GDLs.…”
“…the direction normal to the catalyst layer. It is noteworthy that the relatively higher through-plane GDL resistance has been demonstrated to other modes of transport in our previous investigations, namely mass convection [10e12], electrical conduction [13] and thermal conduction [14,15]. In this paper, we review the investigations that have been conducted to estimate the effective diffusivity of the porous layers in PEFCs, particularly the GDLs.…”
“…Available experimental studies on thermal and electronic conductivities of CLs , have used specific substrate(s) and sample preparation techniques. Accordingly, some questions have remained unanswered, in particular, whether CLs on the substrates chosen for the ex situ measurements differ from CLs used in a fuel cell product.…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The different thicknesses are often required for deconvoluting the CL bulk signal from parasitic signals (e.g., the substrate signal). Some instances include ex situ thermal and electronic conductivity tests , . For these tests to be relevant, microstructure of the characterized samples should be as comparable as possible to the microstructure of the desired CL in an actual MEA.…”
This work proposes new and accurate systematic methodologies for ex situ measurements of through‐plane thermal and in‐plane electronic conductivities of catalyst layers (CLs) of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFC). The developed methods are based on measurements of different thicknesses/lengths of a CL on different substrates. Suitability of the proposed methods is confirmed through a set of microstructural properties measurements on a typical CL design to ensure the measured CLs would be representative of CLs in a real fuel cell product. Conductivity measurements of two CL designs with different compositions and microstructures confirm capability of the developed procedures to track structural changes in CLs. The present characterization platform is not limited to CLs and may be used for other composite porous materials with similar structures.
“…However, all the performed studies on the thermal conductivity of the CL [3,11,24,25] are purely experimental, and, to the authors' best knowledge, no expression for the thermal conductivity of the CL can be found in the open literature. Such expressions are necessary to correlate the thermal conductivity of the CL to its salient structural parameters.…”
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