Thermal conductivity of catalyst layer of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells: Part 1 – Experimental study

Category: Guarded Heat Flow Meter

Author(s): JC, Madhu S. Saha, Majid Bahrami, Mickey Tam, Mohammad Ahadi

Keywords: catalyst layer, ghf, guarded heat flow meter, membrane fuel cell, polymer electrolyte, thermal conductivity, thermal contact resistance, through-plane thermal conductivity, tps, transient plane source

Abstract: In this paper, a new method is proposed for measuring the through plane thermal conductivity of two catalyst layers of different thicknesses by the guarded heat flow meter (GHF) method, and the transient plane source method (TPS). These catalyst layers were made from two catalyst-coated substrates. The effects of pressing, and hot pressing the layers were also studied and shown to have no effect on the thermal conductivity. The measurements from the GHF method yielded a thermal conductivity of 0.214 ± 0.005 Wm-1K-1, and those from the TPS method while hot pressed yielded 0.218 ± 0.005 Wm-1K-1.

Reference: Journal of Power Sources 354 (2017) 207-214

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2017.02.016

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