1-s2.0-S0360319916323254-main.pdf (3 MB)
PTFE mapping in gas diffusion media for PEMFCs using fluorescence microscopy
journal contribution
posted on 2016-10-07, 13:40 authored by Nick Mccarthy, Rui Chen, Gregory Offer, Rob ThringDifferentiating between the various polytetrafluoroethylene based structures inside polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells with a degree of certainty is necessary to optimize manufacturing processes and to investigate possible degradation mechanisms. We have developed a novel method using fluorescence microscopy for distinguishing the origin and location of PTFE and/or Nafion® in Membrane Electrode assemblies and the gas diffusion media from different sources and stages of processing. Fluorescent material was successfully diffused into the PTFE based structures in the GDM by addition to the ‘ink’ precursor for both the microporous layer and the catalyst layer; this made it possible to map separately both layers in a way that has not been reported before. It was found that hot pressing of membrane coated structures resulted in physical dispersion of those layers away from the membrane into the GDM itself. This fluorescence technique should be of interest to membrane electrode assembly manufacturers and fuel cell developers and could be used to track the degradation of different PTFE structures independently in the future.
Funding
This work could not have been completed without the help and support of the EPSRC through its funding of the Doctorial training Centre (DTC) for Hydrogen, Fuels Cells and Their Applications at the University of Birmingham (EPSRC Grant EP/G037116/1), and also the FUTURE vehicles project (EPSRC Grant EP/I038586/1).
History
School
- Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering
Department
- Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering
Published in
International Journal of Hydrogen EnergyVolume
41Issue
39Pages
17631 - 17643Citation
MCCARTHY, N. ... et al., 2016. PTFE mapping in gas diffusion media for PEMFCs using fluorescence microscopy. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 41 (39), pp. 17631 - 17643.Publisher
© The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Hydrogen Energy Publications LLCVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/Acceptance date
2016-07-31Publication date
2016Notes
This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/). The supporting research data for this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.17028/rd.lboro. 3562128.v1.ISSN
1879-3487Publisher version
Language
- en