Feasibility study of porous copper fiber sintered felt: A novel porous flow field in proton exchange membrane fuel cells

被引:87
作者
Tang, Yong [1 ]
Yuan, Wei [1 ,2 ]
Pan, Minqiang [1 ]
Wan, Zhenping [1 ]
机构
[1] S China Univ Technol, Key Lab Surface Funct Struct Mfg, Guangdong Higher Educ Inst, Guangzhou 510640, Peoples R China
[2] Univ New S Wales, Sch Mech & Mfg Engn, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
基金
中国国家自然科学基金;
关键词
Proton exchange membrane fuel cell; Porous copper fiber sintered felt; Porous flow field; Contact angle; Corrosion resistance; GAS-DIFFUSION LAYER; METAL BIPOLAR PLATES; STAINLESS-STEEL; FRACTAL MODEL; PERFORMANCE; CORROSION; ALLOY; COST; PERMEABILITY; BACKING;
D O I
10.1016/j.ijhydene.2010.06.101
中图分类号
O64 [物理化学(理论化学)、化学物理学];
学科分类号
070304 ; 081704 ;
摘要
A novel porous flow field made of the porous copper fiber sintered felt (PCFSF) is developed for proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells. The feasibility of this material is systematically investigated involving fabrication, characterization and application. The experimental results reveal that a lower cutting speed helps prevent the fibers from formation failure and morphological defects. A lower feed rate and a smaller back-cutting depth both reduce the equivalent diameter of the copper fibers. The sintering temperature, time and pressure combine to affect the formation quality of the PCFSF which has three-dimensional network structure with open pores distributed stochastically. The wettability tests show that the PCFSF is hydrophobic and the contact angle increases with the increase of porosity. The corrosion behaviors of the PCFSF in simulated PEM fuel cell environment prove that the PCFSF without any coating and alloying treatment is not quite competent, although the Cu corrosion does not critically happen in the tested fuel cell. The resistance tests demonstrate that the combined total electrical resistance of the composite bipolar plate is smaller than the graphite plate. The single-cell tests show that the performance of the fuel cell with the PCFSF flow field is acceptable. The effects of the operating parameters such as the anode operating pressure and cathode air flow rate are also explored. (C) 2010 Professor T. Nejat Veziroglu. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
引用
收藏
页码:9661 / 9677
页数:17
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