TY - JOUR A1 - Tötzke, C. A1 - Manke, I. A1 - Hartnig, C. A1 - Kuhn, R. A1 - Riesemeier, Heinrich A1 - Banhart, J. T1 - Investigation of carbon fiber gas diffusion layers by means of synchrotron X-ray tomography JF - ECS transactions N2 - The 3-dimensional spatial distribution of liquid water in different gas diffusion layer (GDL) materials was analyzed using synchrotron X-ray tomography. The capability of the method was demonstrated by virtually separating the GDL components in order to facilitate individual analysis of fiber material, liquid water and gas filled pore spaces. The influence of hydrophobic surface treatment on the water distribution in the GDL was illustrated by analyzing three GDL materials with different degrees of hydrophobicity. In the least hydrophobic sample, liquid water tends to form larger clusters which stretch out about several hundred µm inside the porous GDL. In contrast, only small water clusters were found in the strongly hydrophobic material with high Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE)-content as the liquid is partially pressed out of the GDL. Additionally, the influence of fiber orientation on the water distribution in the felt material was demonstrated. KW - Synchrotron X-ray tomography KW - Fuel cell KW - Gas diffusion layer (GDL) materials KW - Analysis of fiber material PY - 2011 DO - https://doi.org/10.1149/1.3635571 SN - 1938-6737 SN - 1938-5862 VL - 41 IS - 1 SP - 379 EP - 386 CY - Pennington, NJ, USA AN - OPUS4-25348 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -