Theoretical and experimental study on the preparation of hydrophobic GDL materials by ultrasonic dispersion

Gas diffusion layer (GDL), as an important transmission component of gas, electricity and liquid, is usually composed of carbon paper, which needs hydrophobic treatment before it is applied in fuel cell. In the paper, ultrasonic dispersion technique is added to the traditional method of preparing hydrophobic carbon paper, and the effect of ultrasonic dispersion on the PTFE load in hydrophobic carbon paper is studied. The theoretical study shows that the ultrasonic dispersion increases the movement of the liquid, thus improving the diffusion performance of the liquid molecules. The experimental results show that compared with the hydrophobic performance of the original carbon paper, the hydrophobic carbon paper prepared by ultrasonic method improves the hydrophobic performance by 13.24%. However, there is no obvious relationship between the PTFE content of the carbon paper treated by ultrasonic dispersion and the hydrophobicity of the carbon paper surface. In addition, ultrasonic dispersion also has a great influence on the gas permeability of hydrophobic treated carbon paper, but the effect on the surface conductivity of carbon paper is not obvious. The results can provide a guidance for the preparation of hydrophobic carbon paper for fuel cells.