Impact of PTFE content and distribution on liquid–gas flow in PEMFC carbon paper gas distribution layer: 3D lattice Boltzmann simulations

Abstract

A 3D multiphase lattice Boltzmann model (LBM) was established and employed to study the impact of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) content and distribution on the liquid–gas transport in proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) carbon-paper gas distribution layer (GDL). In the computer-generated carbon paper GDL, part of the fibers’ surface was randomly specified as PTFE to achieve a desired PTFE content and distribution. For non-uniform PTFE distribution cases, a GDL sub-region neighboring to gas channel (GC) was set to have higher PTFE content. PTFE content and distribution show important influence on the liquid–gas flow and on the relationship of relative permeability versus phase saturation. The GDL sub-region of more PTFE acts like a capillary barrier and raises the liquid saturation level in the rest part of GDL. The simulated liquid saturation level in GDL diminishes with the increase of PTFE content in GDL. The liquid phase relative permeability is larger in the GDL of lower PTFE content if the (overall) liquid saturation is lower than a threshold value, whereas it becomes smaller if the liquid saturation is higher than this threshold value. The liquid phase relative permeability in the GDL with non-uniform PTFE distribution is reduced when the liquid saturation in GDL is lower than a certain value, but when the liquid saturation is higher than this value, it is larger compared with that in the GDL with uniform PTFE distribution. The gas phase relative permeability in the GDL of lower PTFE content is larger than tat in the GDL of higher PTFE content and the non-uniform distribution of PTFE in GDL slightly reduces the gas phase relative permeability value.