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Application of porous copper for GDL in PEM fuel cells

C. M. SIMA1, V. CIUPINA2,3, G. PRODAN2,*

Affiliation

  1. Department of Solid-State Physics, University of Bucharest, Bucharest-Magurele 077125, Romania
  2. Ovidius University of Constanta, Constanta 900527, Romania
  3. Academy of Romanian Scientists, Independenţei 54, Bucharest, Romania

Abstract

The performance of a Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) is strongly influenced by the material of the gas dif-fusion layer (GDL). In general, a GDL is made of a carbon black mixed with Teflon micro-porous layer applied onto macro-porous carbon fiber substrate. This paper comes with the novelty that instead of the carbon based GDL we introduced a po-rous copper GDL. The copper plates were sintered in Ar-H2 gas mixture. Different amounts of naphthalene were mixed with copper filings in order to obtain the porous plates. The results showed that after sintering, there were no more amounts of naphthalene, fact proved by the pore appearance in their place, in the sintered copper filings. Tests have highlighted that the porous copper plates provide gas access from the flow-field channels to the catalyst layer, which is one of the main goals of the GDL..

Keywords

proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell, gas diffusion layer (GDL), porosity, catalyst layer, copper membrane.

Submitted at: Jan. 23, 2015
Accepted at: May 7, 2015

Citation

C. M. SIMA, V. CIUPINA, G. PRODAN, Application of porous copper for GDL in PEM fuel cells, Journal of Optoelectronics and Advanced Materials Vol. 17, Iss. 5-6, pp. 602-607 (2015)