Determination of Material Properties of Gas Diffusion Layers: Experiments and Simulations Using Phase Contrast Tomographic Microscopy

Understanding the transport properties of porous materials plays an important role in the development and optimization of polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs). In this study numerical simulations of different transport properties are compared and validated with data obtained using recently developed experimental techniques. The study is based on a Toray TGP-H-060 carbon paper, a common gas diffusion layer (GDL) material in PEFC. Diffusivity, permeability, and electric conductivity of the anisotropic, porous material are measured experimentally under various levels of compression. A sample of the GDL is imaged with synchrotron-based X-ray tomography under three different compression levels. Based on these three-dimensional images, diffusivity, permeability, and conductivity are calculated numerically. Experimental and numerical results agree in general. Deviations are observed for the through-plane conductivity. An explanation for the discrepancy is presented and affirmed by numerical simulations on a virtually created structure model. This proves that numerical simulation based on tomography data is a versatile tool for the investigation and development of porous structures used in PEFCs.