Tuesday, 15 October 2019: 14:00
Galleria 2 (The Hilton Atlanta)
In the last decade X-ray tomographic microscopy (XTM) has become a powerful 3D characterization technique for polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs). Extensive work has been implemented to characterize the gas diffusion layer's (GDL) microstructure and its influence on gas phase transport, degradation phenomena within the membrane or catalyst layer, the wetting behavior of GDLs, as well as the water distribution during cell operation. Especially sub-second operando XTM [1] is essential to enable the fundamental understanding of the water transport modes in the GDL which is vitally important for improving PEFCs performance, cost and durability. Thanks to recent microscope upgrades and the use of a wider energy range of the synchrotron radiation it is meanwhile possible to realize operando XTM scans of PEFCs with scan times of 0.1 s to 0.25 s at voxel sizes of 2.75 µm [2] or 0.4 µm, respectively, at the TOMCAT beamline of the Swiss Light Source at Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI). This presentation will give insights into these recent achievements and discuss selected case studies benefiting from the improved temporal and spatial resolution.
References
[1] J. Eller, F. Marone, F. N. Büchi, ECS Trans. 69(17), 523–531 (2015).
[2] M. Bührer, M. Stampanoni, X. Rochet, F. Büchi, J. Eller, F. Marone, J. Synchrotron Rad., (accepted).