Mass transport is crucial to the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cells,especially at high current densities.Generally,the oxygen and the generated water share same transmission medium but move towards opp...Mass transport is crucial to the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cells,especially at high current densities.Generally,the oxygen and the generated water share same transmission medium but move towards opposite direction,which leads to serious mass transfer problems.Herein,a series of patterned catalyst layer were prepared with a simple one-step impressing method using nylon sieves as templates.With grooves 100μm in width and 8μm in depth on the surface of cathode catalyst layer,the maximum power density of fuel cell increases by 10%without any additional durability loss while maintaining a similar electrochemical surface area.The concentration contours calculated by finite element analysis reveal that the grooves built on the surface of catalyst layer serve to accumulate the water nearby while oxygen tends to transfer through relatively convex region,which results from capillary pressure difference caused by the pore structure difference between the two regions.The separation of oxidant gas and generated water avoids mass confliction thus boosts mass transport efficiency.展开更多
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(21838003,91834301)the Shanghai Scientific and Technological Innovation Project(18JC1410600,19JC1410400)+2 种基金the Social Development Program of Shanghai(17DZ1200900)the Innovation Program of Shanghai Municipal Education Commissionthe Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities(222201718002)。
文摘Mass transport is crucial to the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cells,especially at high current densities.Generally,the oxygen and the generated water share same transmission medium but move towards opposite direction,which leads to serious mass transfer problems.Herein,a series of patterned catalyst layer were prepared with a simple one-step impressing method using nylon sieves as templates.With grooves 100μm in width and 8μm in depth on the surface of cathode catalyst layer,the maximum power density of fuel cell increases by 10%without any additional durability loss while maintaining a similar electrochemical surface area.The concentration contours calculated by finite element analysis reveal that the grooves built on the surface of catalyst layer serve to accumulate the water nearby while oxygen tends to transfer through relatively convex region,which results from capillary pressure difference caused by the pore structure difference between the two regions.The separation of oxidant gas and generated water avoids mass confliction thus boosts mass transport efficiency.
