Experimental measurement of proton conductivity and electronic conductivity of membrane electrode assembly for proton exchange membrane fuel cells

Abstract

Charge transport processes involving the proton migration and electron transfer for different parts of membrane electrode assemble (MEA) play an essential role for developing the novel electrode and enhancing the electrochemical performance towards proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). However, the coupled charge transport processes make it difficult for evaluating proton conductivity and electronic conductivity of different parts in MEAs under operation conditions of fuel cells. Here in this work, we propose an experiment approach for separating the electronic conductivity and proton conductivity of different components of MEA at the operating conditions of PEMFCs. This approach involves two different measuring devices, which both consist of electron or proton conducting layers, sealing layers and sample layer, followed by tailoring the thickness of sample layers and via electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) to quantity the electronic conductivity and proton conductivity of different layers. These experiment results show the great potential in the development of different components of MEA.