Background
The information in this background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the general background of the invention and is not necessarily to be construed as an admission or any form of suggestion that this information forms the prior art that is already known to a person of ordinary skill in the art.
Proton exchange membrane fuel cell is a clean, high-efficient, simple green energy device, use renewable resources such as hydrogen, methyl alcohol, ethanol to replace conventional fossil fuel, be regarded as the most promising environmental protection energy, input fuel through the external world continuously, through electrochemical reaction, directly convert the chemical energy of fuel into the electric energy, and then constantly to supplying power outward, can alleviate the situation that the electric power construction supply is nervous, the dilemma that the solution energy exhausts, the while has reduced problems such as environmental pollution, fuel cell technique can be applied to fields such as aerospace, automobile engine, portable power source.
Gas diffusion layers are important components in proton exchange membrane fuel cells, serve to support the catalyst layer and provide channels for reactant gases and product water, while also having good electrical conductivity and corrosion resistance under electrochemical reactions. The carbon fiber material has both high conductivity and high anti-corrosion performance and low cost, and is widely applied to the gas diffusion layer of the fuel cell. At present, carbon fiber materials for the gas diffusion layer are mainly divided into carbon fiber woven cloth, carbon fiber non-woven cloth and carbon fiber paper.
The carbon fiber woven cloth is formed by twisting and weaving carbon fiber yarns serving as raw materials through a spinning process. Chinese patent CN101024910A proposes a woven carbon cloth gas diffusion layer for fuel cells. Due to the adoption of the weaving structure, uniform macro pores exist between the warps and the wefts, and the porosity can be adjusted by controlling the thickness of the woven cloth. The carbon fiber woven cloth has high strength and bending flexibility. The fiber monofilament has a certain elongation at break coefficient, has certain elasticity in the plane direction, and can bear certain pressure. However, the inventors have found that the woven structure is also easily stretchable in the planar direction, and has a problem of large deformation. In addition, the surface flatness of the carbon fiber fabric is poor, and the catalyst is not uniformly attached, so that the stability of the fuel cell is affected. Therefore, woven carbon fiber cloth is not an ideal diffusion layer material.
The carbon fiber non-woven fabric is formed by directionally or randomly distributing chopped fibers or filaments, forming a uniform net structure together with an organic polymer and then reinforcing by adopting a mechanical or chemical method and the like. To achieve more excellent performance, carbon fillers may be added to reduce their resistivity or hydrophobic materials may be added to enhance water drainage. Japanese dongli corporation discloses in patent CN105829593A a carbon fiber nonwoven fabric for a gas diffusion electrode, which makes up for the disadvantages of the carbon fiber paper that it is highly brittle and the carbon fiber woven fabric is easily deformed, and the porosity can be controlled from the raw material stage as required. However, the inventors have found that the process is complicated, the strength is poor, the fuel cell is prone to crack in the right-angle direction, and the durability of the fuel cell is difficult to achieve.
The carbon fiber paper is prepared by preparing a precursor material with a porous three-dimensional net structure through a wet papermaking process, and then forming the carbon paper for the gas diffusion layer through thermal processing processes such as carbonization and graphitization. Since the carbon fibers lack active groups on the surface and cannot form strength between fibers after molding, it is necessary to add binder fibers or binders to improve the mechanical strength of the carbon paper precursor during the paper making process. Chinese patent CN101047253A proposes a carbon fiber paper for a gas diffusion layer of a fuel cell, which is made by introducing acrylic fibers as binder fibers in the paper making process and mixing with a carbon fiber dispersion. In order to ensure the strength of the carbon paper precursor, a large amount of thermal bonding fibers are added in the papermaking process. However, the inventors found that thermal bonding fibers with insulating properties seriously impair the electrical conductivity of the carbon paper. In addition, the thermal bonding fibers shrink and deform during the subsequent heat treatment process, thereby damaging the structure of the carbon fiber paper. Chinese patent CN1986961A proposes a preparation process of carbon nanotube/acrylonitrile-based carbon fiber composite carbon paper. The invention takes acrylonitrile-based carbon fiber as a main body and carbon nano tubes as functional filler, the acrylonitrile-based carbon fiber and the carbon nano tubes are fully mixed by pulping, then polyacrylamide and other high molecular adhesives are added in the dispersion process, and the composite carbon fiber paper is prepared by a wet papermaking process. Although the addition of the binder provides some physical strength to the carbon paper precursor, the inventors have found that it reduces both the air permeability and the carbon content of the carbon fiber paper.
Disclosure of Invention
Aiming at the defects in the prior art, the invention provides a preparation method of a carbon paper precursor for a gas diffusion layer of a fuel cell, and a small amount of nano-cellulose is added in the preparation process, so that the dispersibility of carbon fibers can be obviously improved, and carbon paper with a uniform structure can be prepared; the nano-cellulose can form hydrogen bond combination between carbon fibers, so that the carbon paper has excellent mechanical strength and structural stability; the nano-cellulose can not damage the porous structure of the carbon paper, so that the carbon paper has high air permeability, and the carbon fiber paper with high purity, high porosity, good conductivity and high structural stability is finally prepared, thereby having good practical application value.
Specifically, the invention relates to the following technical scheme:
in a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of preparing a carbon paper precursor for a gas diffusion layer of a fuel cell, the method comprising:
s1, preparation of carbon fiber dispersion liquid: mixing short carbon fibers and long carbon fibers with different fiber lengths with nano-cellulose, adding a retention aid for defibering and dispersing to obtain a carbon fiber dispersion solution;
s2, forming of carbon fiber paper: placing the carbon fiber dispersion liquid in the step S1 in a forming device by adopting a wet forming process, and performing vacuum dehydration to enable the carbon fiber dispersion liquid to pass through a filter screen, thereby forming a carbon fiber wet paper web on the surface of the filter screen;
s3, impregnating resin: applying resin on one side of the carbon fiber wet paper web, and simultaneously sucking on the other side of the carbon fiber paper by adopting vacuum negative pressure to ensure that the resin is soaked in the carbon fiber paper; vacuum drying to obtain the final product.
In a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a carbon fiber paper precursor obtained by the above-described production method.
In a third aspect of the present invention, a carbon fiber paper is provided, which is obtained by carbonizing and graphitizing the carbon fiber paper precursor. The carbon fiber paper finally prepared by the preparation method has high evenness, high air permeability, excellent conductivity, stable porous structure and high carbon content, and can effectively meet the performance requirements of the gas diffusion layer of the fuel cell.
In a fourth aspect of the invention, a fuel cell gas diffusion layer is provided, comprising the carbon fiber paper described above.
In a fifth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a fuel cell comprising the above fuel cell gas diffusion layer and/or the above carbon fiber paper.
The beneficial technical effects of one or more technical schemes are as follows:
1. the prepared carbon fiber paper precursor contains carbon fibers with different lengths, the carbon fibers are mutually overlapped to form an excellent conductive system, and the carbon fiber paper precursor also has uniformly distributed pores, so that the defects of the carbon paper for the traditional gas diffusion layer in the aspects of resistivity, porosity, uniformity and the like are overcome.
2. The dispersibility of the carbon fiber can be obviously improved by adding a small amount of nano-cellulose, so that the carbon paper with a uniform structure is prepared; the nano-cellulose can form hydrogen bond combination between carbon fibers, so that the carbon paper has excellent mechanical strength and structural stability; the nano-cellulose can not damage the porous structure of the carbon paper, so that the carbon paper has high air permeability.
3. The retention aid is added in the preparation process, so that the retention rate of the fine fibers can be effectively improved, the addition amount of the nano-cellulose is reduced, and the purity and the carbon content of the carbon paper are further improved. Therefore, it has good practical application value.
Detailed Description
It should be noted that the following detailed description is exemplary and is intended to provide further explanation of the disclosure. Unless defined otherwise, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this application belongs.
It is noted that the terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of example embodiments according to the present application. As used herein, the singular forms "a", "an" and "the" are intended to include the plural forms as well, and it should be understood that when the terms "comprises" and/or "comprising" are used in this specification, they specify the presence of stated features, steps, operations, devices, components, and/or combinations thereof, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise.
The present invention is further illustrated by reference to specific examples, which are intended to be illustrative only and not limiting. If the experimental conditions not specified in the examples are specified, they are generally according to the conventional conditions, or according to the conditions recommended by the sales companies; materials, reagents and the like used in examples were commercially available unless otherwise specified.
As described above, a gas diffusion layer is an important component in a proton exchange membrane fuel cell, and at present, carbon fiber materials used for the gas diffusion layer are mainly classified into three types, namely carbon fiber woven cloth, carbon fiber non-woven cloth, and carbon fiber paper, but various problems of complicated preparation process, low strength, poor conductivity and air permeability, low carbon content, and the like generally exist, so that it is an urgent problem to solve to develop a carbon fiber paper precursor having high uniformity, high air permeability, excellent conductivity, stable porous structure, and high carbon content.
In view of the above, one embodiment of the present invention provides a method for preparing a carbon paper precursor for a gas diffusion layer of a fuel cell, the method comprising:
s1, preparation of carbon fiber dispersion liquid: mixing short carbon fibers and long carbon fibers with different fiber lengths with nano-cellulose, adding a retention aid for defibering and dispersing to obtain a carbon fiber dispersion solution;
s2, forming of carbon fiber paper: placing the carbon fiber dispersion liquid in the step S1 in a forming device by adopting a wet forming process, and performing vacuum dehydration to enable the carbon fiber dispersion liquid to pass through a filter screen, thereby forming a carbon fiber wet paper web on the surface of the filter screen;
s3, impregnating resin: applying resin on one side of the carbon fiber wet paper web, and simultaneously sucking on the other side of the carbon fiber paper by adopting vacuum negative pressure to ensure that the resin is soaked in the carbon fiber paper; vacuum drying to obtain the final product.
In another embodiment of the present invention, in step S1, the concentration of the system is controlled to be 0.1-0.15% after the retention aid is added;
the length of the short carbon fiber is 0.5-2 mm; the length of the long carbon fiber is 3-6 mm;
the diameter of the nano-cellulose is 20-500 nm, and the length-diameter ratio is 50-200;
more preferably, the nanocellulose has a diameter of-50 nm and an aspect ratio of 150;
the mass ratio of the short carbon fiber to the long carbon fiber to the nano-cellulose is 5-15: 80-90: 1-3.
The preparation process and the raw materials of the nano-cellulose are not particularly limited, and the nano-cellulose can be prepared by one or more processes of a mechanical method, a chemical method and a biological method, and the raw materials of the nano-cellulose are plant fibers or bacterial cellulose.
The retention aid is one or more of cationic starch, cationic polyacrylamide and carboxymethyl cellulose.
The defibering and dispersing treatment can be carried out in a defibering machine; specifically, the rotating speed is controlled to be 200-400 revolutions per minute, and the fluffing and dispersing time is 1-2 minutes;
in another embodiment of the present invention, in step S2,
controlling the concentration of the fiber dispersion liquid to be 0.005-0.01%;
the filter screen can be a stainless steel filter screen, and the mesh number of the filter screen is 80-100 meshes;
in another embodiment of the present invention, in step S3,
the resin can be applied by spraying; the resin may be any one or more of a phenol resin, an epoxy resin and an acrylonitrile resin.
The vacuum drying conditions are as follows: treating at 80-100 ℃ for 10-20 minutes.
In still another embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a carbon fiber paper precursor obtained by the above-described production method.
In another embodiment of the present invention, a carbon fiber paper is provided, which is obtained by carbonizing and graphitizing the carbon fiber paper precursor. The carbon fiber paper finally prepared by the preparation method has high evenness, high air permeability, excellent conductivity, stable porous structure and high carbon content, and can effectively meet the performance requirements of the gas diffusion layer of the fuel cell.
In yet another embodiment of the present invention, a fuel cell gas diffusion layer is provided comprising the carbon fiber paper described above.
In yet another embodiment of the present invention, a fuel cell is provided comprising the above-described fuel cell gas diffusion layer and/or the above-described carbon fiber paper.
The invention is further illustrated by the following examples, which are not to be construed as limiting the invention thereto. It should be understood that these examples are for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention.
Example 1
A preparation method of a carbon paper precursor for a gas diffusion layer of a fuel cell comprises the following steps:
(1) preparation of carbon fiber dispersion: short carbon fiber with the fiber length of 0.5mm, long carbon fiber with the fiber length of 3mm and nano-cellulose (the diameter of the nano-cellulose is 50nm, the length-diameter ratio is 150) are mixed according to the mass ratio of 9:90:1 and added into a defiberizer. Then 0.2% of carboxymethyl cellulose retention aid is added, the concentration of the system is adjusted to be 0.1%, and the mixture is dispersed for 2 minutes under the high-speed stirring of 200 revolutions per minute.
(2) Forming carbon fiber paper: and (2) adopting a wet forming process, adding water into the carbon fiber dispersion liquid prepared in the step (1) to adjust the concentration to be 0.005%, then adding the carbon fiber dispersion liquid into a former, and performing vacuum dehydration to enable the dispersion liquid to pass through a stainless steel filter screen of 80 meshes to form a wet paper web on the surface of the filter screen.
(3) Impregnating resin: spraying phenolic resin on one side of the carbon fiber wet paper web, and simultaneously sucking on the other side of the carbon fiber paper by adopting vacuum negative pressure so as to immerse the phenolic resin into the carbon fiber paper. After completion, the mixture was dried under vacuum at 100 ℃ for 10 minutes.
Example 2
A preparation method of a carbon paper precursor for a gas diffusion layer of a fuel cell comprises the following steps:
(1) preparation of carbon fiber dispersion: short carbon fiber with the fiber length of 1mm, long carbon fiber with the fiber length of 4mm and nano-cellulose (the diameter of the nano-cellulose is 50nm, the length-diameter ratio is 150) are mixed and added into a defiberizing machine according to the mass ratio of 4:95: 1. Then 0.25% of carboxymethyl cellulose retention aid is added, the concentration of the system is adjusted to be 0.12%, and the mixture is dispersed for 1.5 minutes under the high-speed stirring of 300 revolutions per minute.
(2) Forming carbon fiber paper: and (2) adopting a wet forming process, adding water into the carbon fiber dispersion liquid prepared in the step (1) to adjust the concentration to be 0.007%, then adding the carbon fiber dispersion liquid into a former, and performing vacuum dehydration to enable the dispersion liquid to pass through a 90-mesh stainless steel filter screen to form a wet paper web on the surface of the filter screen.
(3) Impregnating resin: spraying phenolic resin on one side of the carbon fiber wet paper web, and simultaneously sucking on the other side of the carbon fiber paper by adopting vacuum negative pressure so as to immerse the phenolic resin into the carbon fiber paper. After completion, the mixture was dried under vacuum at 95 ℃ for 12 minutes.
Example 3
A preparation method of a carbon paper precursor for a gas diffusion layer of a fuel cell comprises the following steps:
(1) preparation of carbon fiber dispersion: short carbon fiber with the fiber length of 2mm, long carbon fiber with the fiber length of 5mm and nano-cellulose (the diameter of the nano-cellulose is 50nm, the length-diameter ratio is 150) are mixed according to the mass ratio of 13:85:2 and added into a defibrator. Then 0.3% of carboxymethyl cellulose retention aid is added, the concentration of the system is adjusted to be 0.15%, and the mixture is dispersed for 1 minute under the high-speed stirring of 400 revolutions per minute.
(2) Forming carbon fiber paper: and (2) adopting a wet forming process, adding water into the carbon fiber dispersion liquid prepared in the step (1) to adjust the concentration to be 0.01%, then adding the carbon fiber dispersion liquid into a former, and performing vacuum dehydration to enable the dispersion liquid to pass through a stainless steel filter screen of 100 meshes to form a wet paper web on the surface of the filter screen.
(3) Impregnating resin: spraying phenolic resin on one side of the carbon fiber wet paper web, and simultaneously sucking on the other side of the carbon fiber paper by adopting vacuum negative pressure so as to immerse the phenolic resin into the carbon fiber paper. After completion, it was dried under vacuum at 90 ℃ for 15 minutes.
Comparative example 1
The preparation method of the carbon paper without adding the nano-cellulose comprises the following steps:
(1) preparation of carbon fiber dispersion: short carbon fiber with the fiber length of 0.5mm and long carbon fiber with the fiber length of 3mm are mixed and added into a fiber fluffer according to the mass ratio of 1: 90. Then 0.2% of carboxymethyl cellulose retention agent is added, the concentration of the system is adjusted to be 0.1%, and the mixture is dispersed for 2 minutes under the high-speed stirring of 200 revolutions per minute.
(2) Forming carbon fiber paper: and (2) adopting a wet forming process, adding water into the carbon fiber dispersion liquid prepared in the step (1) to adjust the concentration to be 0.005%, then adding the carbon fiber dispersion liquid into a former, and performing vacuum dehydration to enable the dispersion liquid to pass through a stainless steel filter screen of 80 meshes to form a wet paper web on the surface of the filter screen.
(3) Impregnating resin: spraying phenolic resin on one side of the carbon fiber wet paper web, and simultaneously sucking on the other side of the carbon fiber paper by adopting vacuum negative pressure so as to immerse the phenolic resin into the carbon fiber paper. After completion, the mixture was dried under vacuum at 100 ℃ for 10 minutes.
The test results of the carbon fiber paper for a gas diffusion layer of a fuel cell prepared in each example and comparative example are shown in table 1.
TABLE 1
As can be seen from Table 1, the method provided by the invention can significantly improve the performance of the carbon paper precursor, and effectively improve the overall stability of the carbon paper in the application of the gas diffusion layer of the fuel cell.
Finally, it should be noted that: although the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the foregoing embodiments, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that changes may be made in the embodiments and/or equivalents thereof without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Any modification, equivalent replacement, or improvement made within the spirit and principle of the present invention should be included in the protection scope of the present invention.