Development of a High Performance Separator for PEFC by Visualization Technique

The PEFC has water management issues such as flooding, where condensate blocks pores of Gas-Diffusion-Layer, and plugging, where condensate blocks the gas channels. Flooding/plugging in the cathode is influenced by the anode channel through the mem-brane. Moreover, the water transport phenomenon through the membrane is affected by the location of the flooding/plugging in each gas channel. We aim to elucidate the water transport phe-nomenon through the membrane by visualizing both electrode re-actions. Moreover, we develop a high performance separator as a proposal of an optimum water management method. This high per-formance separator is composed of two channels for gas and drain-age, and a Water-Adsorption-Layer between GDL and the current collector. The pore diameter and porosity of WAL are optimized by visualization technique. Ultimately, a 0.9 μm MPD WAL has good performance, and if it is adopted in high performance separa-tors, the plugging/flooding phenomena can be controlled on PEFC.