New approach by electrospray technique to prepare a gas diffusion layer for the proton exchange membrane fuel cell anode

Abstract The performance of the electrospray technique was applied to obtain a gas diffusion layer (GDL) for a proton exchange membrane fuel cell. It was confirmed by confocal microscopy that polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE) was impregnated into the backbone, forming a dispersed layer of microscopic size homogeneously distributed over the substrate. The PTFE layer was characterized by infrared spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis. In this work, we demonstrated that the use of the GDL prepared by electrospray increases the maximum power of the H2/O2 fuel cell by about 10% and decreases the diffusion loss of the electrode owing to a better distribution characteristic hydrophobic coating with low impedance to gas diffusion. Thus, our method is promising for the development of fuel cells by the production of diffusion layers.