In polymer electrode fuel cells the main component is the membrane/electrodes assembly (MEA). Gas diffusion electrodes (GDL) are the principal components of the MEA, being a composite material constituted of diffusion and catalyst layers, formed by carbon powder, platinum, PTFE and Nafion polymers deposed over a subtract (carbon paper or cloth). These layers present roughness and porous surfaces of complex characterization. The aim of this work is to characterize GDL. The surface wettability was assessed by drop water external contact angle measurements. The advancing and receding angles were measured and used to estimate the hysteresis and the equilibrium angle. Morphology and composition were studied using scanning electronic microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy while porosity was measured by imbibing n-heptane and water into substrates to quantify hydrophilic/hydrofobic pores. Morphologic study indicated that PTFE incorporation into carbon power is a critical step on diffusion layers fabrication. A greater amount of PTFE results in decrease the total porosity and increases the percent of hydrophobic porous for both substrates. The results obtained in angles contact determination present good precision, especially for the composite deposited over carbon cloth. The values obtained for contact angels of the catalyst layers were lower than ones measured over diffusion layer, probably due to the presence of Nafion, which presents a hydrophilic character minimizing the composite hydrophobicity. These results confirmed the complexity of GDL and confirmed the importance of a detailed characterization for MEA assembly optimization.
membrane; hydrofobicity; contact angel; hysteresis; porosity
