Abstract
Micro-cracks commonly occur on the catalyst layers (CLs) during the manufacturing of catalyst coated membranes (CCMs). However, the crack shape parameters effect on CLs in-plane (IP) electronic conductivity λs is not clear. In this work, the relationship between crack parameters and the λs is obtained based on the two-dimensional (2D) multiple-relaxation time (MRT) lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). The LBM numerical model is validated by the normalized λs experiment applied on three different home-made cracked CLs, and the parameter study focus on crack width, length, quantity and phase angle are carried out. The results show that the decrease of λs has different sensitivity |k| to the parameters above. The crack width has little effect on λs decrease, and the |kw| is 0.038. However, crack arm length and quantity show more significant impact, which |kl| and |kN| are 0.753 and 0.725, respectively. The CLs with different crack propagation directions show significant anisotropy on λs, and a 53.53% decrease in λs is observed between 0° and 90° crack phase angle change. To manufacture a high electronic conductivity CL, crack initiation and migration mitigation are highly encouraged.
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