Investigation of sintered stainless steel fiber felt as gas diffusion layer in proton exchange membrane fuel cells |
| |
Authors: | Peiyun Yi Linfa Peng Xinmin Lai Mutian Li Jun Ni |
| |
Affiliation: | 1. State Key Laboratory of Mechanical System and Vibration, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, PR China;2. Shanghai Key Laboratory of Digital Autobody Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, PR China;3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2125, USA |
| |
Abstract: | The feasibility of using sintered stainless steel fiber felt (SSSFF) as gas diffusion layer (GDL) in proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) is evaluated in this study. The SSSFF is coated with an amorphous carbon (a-C) film by closed field unbalanced magnetron sputter ion plating (CFUBMSIP) to enhance the corrosion resistance and reduce the contact resistance. The characteristics of treated SSSFF, including microscopic morphology, mechanical properties, electrical conductivity, electrochemical behavior and wettablity characterization, are systematically investigated and summarized according to the requirements of GDL in PEMFC. A membrane electrode assembly (MEA) with a-C coated SSSFF-15 GDL is fabricated and assembled with a-C coated stainless steel bipolar plates in a single cell. The initial peak power density of the single cell is 877.8 mW cm−2 at a current density of 2324.9 mA cm−2. Lifetime test of the single cell over 200 h indicates that the a-C coating protects the SSSFF-15 GDL from corrosion and decreases the performance degradation from 30.6% to 6.3%. The results show that the SSSFF GDL, enjoying higher compressive modulus and ductility, is a promising solution to improve fluid permeability of GDL under compression and PEMFC durability. |
| |
Keywords: | Proton exchange membrane fuel cells Gas diffusion layer Sintered stainless steel fiber felt Amorphous carbon film Performance |
本文献已被 ScienceDirect 等数据库收录! |
|