Preparation method of gas diffusion layer of proton exchange membrane fuel cell
Technical Field
The invention relates to the technical field of fuel cells, in particular to a preparation method of a gas diffusion layer of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell.
Background
With the continuous depletion of fossil energy, the search for new alternative energy sources is imminent. The Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) has advantages of small system volume, high energy density, cleanness, no pollution, no need of complicated air supply and humidification system, etc., and thus has received attention from the industry. Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) core assembly (MEA) consists of gas diffusion layer, catalytic layer and proton exchange membrane. The Gas Diffusion Layer (GDL) is located between the catalytic layer and the flow field, and functions to support the catalytic layer and stabilize the electrode structure, and must have excellent air permeability and a function of removing moisture generated from the catalytic layer in time.
A typical gas diffusion layer generally includes a substrate layer made of a porous conductive medium material such as carbon fiber paper or carbon woven cloth, and a microporous layer made of carbon powder and hydrophobic Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). Currently, gas diffusion layer substrates for domestic and foreign fuel cells include carbon fiber paper, carbon woven cloth, carbon fiber felt, and the like. And after hydrophobic and heat treatment is carried out on the substrate layer, a microporous layer is prepared on the surface of the substrate layer. At present, a substrate material commonly used for the gas diffusion layer is carbon fiber paper, however, the carbon fiber paper has the defect of mechanical brittleness, and failure modes such as fiber fracture, matrix cracking, fiber and matrix interface peeling and the like are easily caused under the conditions of cell assembly pressure, external collision, repeated disassembly and assembly and the like, so that the service life of the cell is influenced. Meanwhile, carbon paper suppliers mainly used in China are mainly the japan Dongli company, the german SGL technology company and the canadian barred company due to the high level of development of carbon fiber paper, the market is almost all occupied by foreign companies, and carbon paper is expensive and restricted.
Therefore, the expensive cost, low conductivity and limited application range of the gas diffusion layer in the prior art become technical problems to be solved by those skilled in the art.
Disclosure of Invention
The invention provides a preparation method of a gas diffusion layer of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell, which is used for solving the technical problems of high cost, low conductivity and wide application range of the gas diffusion layer in the prior art.
The invention provides a preparation method of a gas diffusion layer of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell, which comprises the following steps:
step 1: removing water from the log;
step 2: performing first carbonization on the log with water removed to obtain carbonized wood;
and step 3: subjecting the first carbonized wood to second carbonization;
and 4, step 4: trimming the carbonized wood after the second carbonization to 0.1-0.3 mm;
and 5: soaking the carbonized wood trimmed in the step 4 in absolute ethyl alcohol solution, and performing ultrasonic dispersion and drying
Step 6: soaking the carbonized wood dried in the step 5 in a water repellent emulsion;
and 7: placing the carbonized wood treated in the step 6 in a tubular furnace, and sintering a water repellent in a nitrogen-filled environment;
and 8: adding conductive carbon powder and the water repellent emulsion into an alcohol solvent, and performing ultrasonic dispersion to form uniform carbon powder layer slurry;
and step 9: uniformly coating the carbon powder layer slurry on one side of the surface of the carbonized wood subjected to hydrophobic treatment to form a substrate with a microporous layer;
step 10: and sintering the substrate with the microporous layer to obtain the gas diffusion layer of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell.
Preferably, the step 1 specifically comprises scraping and trimming bark on the periphery of the log, and drying at 50-75 deg.C for 12-24h to remove water from the log itself.
Preferably, the temperature of the first carbonization is 240-280 ℃ and the time is 8-12 hours.
Preferably, the temperature of the second carbonization is 800-.
Preferably, after the step 6, the step 7 further comprises: repeating the step 6 (1-5) times until the content of the loaded water repellent accounts for 10-30% of the total mass of the carbonized wood;
preferably, the sintering temperature in step 7 is 350-400 ℃.
Preferably, after the step 9, the step 10 is preceded by repeating the step 9(1-5) times until the loading of the carbon powder reaches 1-5mg/cm2。
Preferably, the concentration of the water repellent emulsion is 1-5%.
Preferably, the water repellent emulsion is one or two of polytetrafluoroethylene emulsion, polypropylene emulsion, polyvinylidene fluoride emulsion and ethylene-tetrafluoroethylene copolymer emulsion. A
Preferably, the conductive carbon powder is one or a mixture of more of Vulcan XC-72, acetylene Black, Black pearls, carbon nanotubes and graphene powder.
More preferably, the coating in step 10 is one or more of spraying, knife coating, brushing, and screen printing.
At present, carbon fiber paper is generally used as a commercially available gas diffusion layer substrate layer on the market, and the development level of the carbon fiber paper is higher. According to the gas diffusion layer prepared by the invention, the substrate layer adopts natural raw wood, and the excellent three-dimensional porous structure of the gas diffusion layer has great potential as the substrate layer of the gas diffusion layer. In addition, the raw wood belongs to renewable raw materials, the source is rich, and the processing of complicated operation steps is not needed, so the preparation method has low cost. Compared with the TGP-H-090 made of the Dongli carbon paper in Japan, the gas diffusion layer prepared by the embodiment of the invention has the advantages of excellent cell performance, small impedance, suitability for small or micro fuel cells and capability of realizing long-time stable operation. Because the invention adopts the log with a natural porous structure, the invention is beneficial to the moisture management of the fuel cell, and the invention can keep better performance in long-time operation.
Drawings
In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present invention or the technical solutions in the prior art, the drawings used in the description of the embodiments or the prior art will be briefly described below, and it is obvious that the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present invention, and for those skilled in the art, other drawings can be obtained according to these drawings without inventive exercise.
FIG. 1 is a graph showing the performance of batteries according to examples 1 to 3 of the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a graph showing the performance of the batteries of example 2 of the present invention and comparative example 1;
FIG. 3 is an impedance diagram of example 2 of the present invention and comparative example 1.
Detailed Description
The embodiment of the invention provides a preparation method of a gas diffusion layer of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell, which is used for solving the technical problems of high cost, low conductivity and wide application range of the gas diffusion layer in the prior art.
In order to make the objects, features and advantages of the present invention more obvious and understandable, the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the accompanying drawings in the embodiments of the present invention, and it is obvious that the embodiments described below are only a part of the embodiments of the present invention, and not all of the embodiments. All other embodiments, which can be derived by a person skilled in the art from the embodiments given herein without making any creative effort, shall fall within the protection scope of the present invention.
Example 1
Firstly, cutting a log into slices vertical to the growth direction of a tree, scraping and trimming the bark on the periphery of the log, and drying for 24 hours in a 50 ℃ oven; placing the dried log in a muffle furnace, and pre-carbonizing at 240 ℃ for 10 hours; placing the carbonized wood subjected to the pre-carbonization treatment in a tubular furnace, and carbonizing for 1 hour at 1000 ℃ in a nitrogen-filled environment; trimming carbonized wood to 0.3mm by using a cutting tool, soaking the carbonized wood in absolute ethyl alcohol, ultrasonically dispersing and cleaning residual carbon powder on the carbonized wood, drying in an oven and weighing; diluting the PTFE emulsion with the mass fraction of 60% by using deionized water to obtain a water repellent emulsion with the mass fraction of 5%; soaking the dried carbonized wood in 5 percent of PTFE emulsion in sequence, ultrasonically dispersing for 10 minutes, drying and weighing until the load of the PTFE emulsion accounts for 30 percent of the mass of the carbonized wood; placing the soaked carbonized wood in a tubular furnace in a nitrogen-filled environment, and sintering at 375 ℃ for 1 hour; measuring 5ml of absolute ethyl alcohol, adding 20mg of Vulcan XC-72 and 100mg of PTFE emulsion (5 wt%) into the absolute ethyl alcohol, and performing ultrasonic dispersion for 30 minutes to form uniform carbon powder layer slurry; coating the carbon powder layer slurry on one side of the surface of the carbonized wood subjected to hydrophobic treatment layer by layer in sequence, drying and weighing until the loading capacity of the carbon powder reaches 4mg/cm2(ii) a Finally the whole gas diffusion layer was sintered in a muffle furnace at 375 ℃ for 30 minutes.
Example 2
Firstly, cutting a log into slices vertical to the growth direction of a tree, scraping and trimming the bark on the periphery of the log, and drying for 24 hours in an oven at 50 ℃; placing the dried log in a muffle furnace, and pre-carbonizing at 240 ℃ for 10 hours; placing the carbonized wood subjected to the pre-carbonization treatment in a tubular furnace, and carbonizing for 1 hour at 1000 ℃ in a nitrogen-filled environment; trimming carbonized wood to 0.3mm by using a cutting tool, soaking the carbonized wood in absolute ethyl alcohol, ultrasonically dispersing and cleaning residual carbon powder on the carbonized wood, drying in an oven and weighing; diluting the PTFE emulsion with the mass fraction of 60% by using deionized water to obtain a water repellent emulsion with the mass fraction of 5%; soaking the dried carbonized wood in 5 percent of PTFE emulsion in sequence, ultrasonically dispersing for 10 minutes, drying and weighing until the load of the PTFE emulsion accounts for 20 percent of the mass of the carbonized wood; placing the soaked carbonized wood in a tubular furnace in a nitrogen-filled environment, and sintering at 375 ℃ for 1 hour; measuring 5ml of absolute ethyl alcohol, adding 20mg of Vulcan XC-72 and 100mg of PTFE emulsion (5 wt%) into the absolute ethyl alcohol, and performing ultrasonic dispersion for 30 minutes to form uniform carbon powder layer slurry; coating the carbon powder layer slurry on one side of the surface of the carbonized wood subjected to hydrophobic treatment layer by layer in sequence, drying and weighing until the loading capacity of the carbon powder reaches 4mg/cm2(ii) a Finally the whole gas diffusion layer was sintered in a muffle furnace at 375 ℃ for 30 minutes.
Example 3
Firstly, cutting a log into slices vertical to the growth direction of a tree, scraping and trimming the bark on the periphery of the log, and drying the log in an oven at 50 ℃ for 24 hours; placing the dried log in a muffle furnace, and pre-carbonizing for 10 hours at 240 ℃; placing the carbonized wood subjected to the pre-carbonization treatment in a tubular furnace, and carbonizing for 1 hour at 1000 ℃ in a nitrogen-filled environment; trimming carbonized wood to 0.3mm by using a cutting tool, soaking the carbonized wood in absolute ethyl alcohol, ultrasonically dispersing and cleaning residual carbon powder on the carbonized wood, drying in an oven and weighing; diluting the PTFE emulsion with the mass fraction of 60% by using deionized water to obtain a water repellent emulsion with the mass fraction of 5%; soaking the dried carbonized wood in 5% PTFE emulsion in turn, ultrasonically dispersing for 10 min, drying and weighing until the PTFE emulsion isThe loading amount accounts for 10% of the mass of the carbonized wood; placing the soaked carbonized wood in a tubular furnace in a nitrogen-filled environment, and sintering at 375 ℃ for 1 hour; measuring 5ml of absolute ethyl alcohol, adding 20mg of Vulcan XC-72 and 100mg of PTFE emulsion (5 wt%) into the absolute ethyl alcohol, and performing ultrasonic dispersion for 30 minutes to form uniform carbon powder layer slurry; coating the carbon powder layer slurry on one side of the surface of the carbonized wood subjected to hydrophobic treatment layer by layer in sequence, drying and weighing until the loading capacity of the carbon powder reaches 4mg/cm2(ii) a Finally the whole gas diffusion layer was sintered in a muffle furnace at 375 ℃ for 30 minutes.
Example 4
Firstly, cutting a log into slices vertical to the growth direction of a tree, scraping and trimming the bark on the periphery of the log, and drying for 24 hours in an oven at 50 ℃; placing the dried log in a muffle furnace, and pre-carbonizing for 8 hours at the temperature of 240 ℃; placing the carbonized wood subjected to the pre-carbonization treatment in a tubular furnace, and carbonizing for 1 hour at 1000 ℃ in a nitrogen-filled environment; trimming carbonized wood to 0.3mm by using a cutting tool, soaking the carbonized wood in absolute ethyl alcohol, ultrasonically dispersing and cleaning residual carbon powder on the carbonized wood, drying in an oven and weighing; soaking the dried carbonized wood in 5 percent of PVDF emulsion in sequence, ultrasonically dispersing for 10 minutes, drying and weighing until the load capacity of the PVDF emulsion accounts for 20 percent of the mass of the carbonized wood; placing the soaked carbonized wood in a tubular furnace in a nitrogen-filled environment, and sintering at 375 ℃ for 1 hour; measuring 5ml of absolute ethyl alcohol, adding 20mg of acetylene black and 100mg of PVDF emulsion (5 wt%) into the absolute ethyl alcohol, and performing ultrasonic dispersion for 30 minutes to form uniform carbon powder layer slurry; coating the carbon powder layer slurry on one side of the surface of the carbonized wood subjected to hydrophobic treatment layer by layer in sequence, drying and weighing until the loading capacity of the carbon powder reaches 5mg/cm2(ii) a Finally the whole gas diffusion layer was sintered in a muffle furnace at 375 ℃ for 30 minutes.
Example 5
Firstly, cutting a log into slices vertical to the growth direction of a tree, scraping and trimming the bark on the periphery of the log, and drying for 24 hours in an oven at 50 ℃; placing the dried log in a muffle furnace, and pre-carbonizing for 10 hours at 240 ℃; placing carbonized wood after pre-carbonization treatment in a tubular furnace, and charging nitrogen at 1000 deg.CCarbonizing for 2 hours; trimming carbonized wood to 0.3mm by using a cutting tool, soaking the carbonized wood in absolute ethyl alcohol, ultrasonically dispersing and cleaning residual carbon powder on the carbonized wood, drying in an oven and weighing; sequentially soaking the dried carbonized wood in 5% of PP emulsion, ultrasonically dispersing for 10 minutes, drying and weighing until the load of the PP emulsion accounts for 20% of the mass of the carbonized wood; placing the soaked carbonized wood in a tubular furnace in a nitrogen-filled environment, and sintering at 375 ℃ for 1 hour; measuring 5ml of absolute ethyl alcohol, adding 20mg of carbon nano tubes and 100mg of PP emulsion (5 wt%) into the absolute ethyl alcohol, and performing ultrasonic dispersion for 30 minutes to form uniform carbon powder layer slurry; coating the carbon powder layer slurry on one side of the surface of the carbonized wood subjected to hydrophobic treatment layer by layer in sequence, drying and weighing until the loading capacity of the carbon powder reaches 5mg/cm2(ii) a Finally, the whole gas diffusion layer was sintered in a muffle furnace at 375 ℃ for 30 min.
Comparative example 1
TGP-H-090, Dongli carbon paper, Japan.
The gas diffusion layers prepared in examples 1 to 3 were used as cathode gas diffusion layers and commercial gas diffusion layers as anode gas diffusion layers, and the tests were performed on CCM assembled batteries in which catalysts were sprayed on both surfaces of 212 membranes. Performing single cell polarization scanning on a membrane electrode prepared by adopting a carbonized wood gas diffusion layer, wherein the test conditions are as follows: the working temperature of the battery is normal temperature H2The flow rate is 80ml/min, no humidification is required, the anode adopts dead-end connection mode, the working area of the battery is 2.25cm2。
The test was conducted on CCM assembled cells in which example 2 and comparative example 1 were used as a cathode gas diffusion layer, a commercial gas diffusion layer was used as an anode gas diffusion layer, and both sides of 212 membranes were sprayed with a catalyst, respectively. And (3) carrying out impedance test, wherein the test conditions are as follows: the OCV is 0.8V, the test frequency is 0.1-100000 Hz, and the amplitude is 0.01V.
As can be seen from the cell performances of example 2 and comparative example 1, the gas diffusion layer prepared according to the present invention has superior cell performance, low resistance, applicability to small or micro fuel cells, and stable operation over a long period of time, as compared to TGP-H-090, a japanese dongli carbon paper, as shown in fig. 2 and 3. Because the invention adopts the log with a natural porous structure, the invention is beneficial to the moisture management of the fuel cell, and the invention can keep better performance in long-time operation.
The above-mentioned embodiments are only used for illustrating the technical solutions of the present invention, and not for limiting the same; although the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the foregoing embodiments, it will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that: the technical solutions described in the foregoing embodiments may still be modified, or some technical features may be equivalently replaced; and such modifications or substitutions do not depart from the spirit and scope of the corresponding technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention.