Microstructure reconstruction and characterization of PEMFC electrodes

•We established methods for the reconstruction of PEMFC CL and non-woven GDL.•The detailed microstructures in CL and GDL are well resolved.•An extensive characterization is performed w.r.t the reconstructed electrodes.•We calculate transport properties in the reconstructed electrodes via LB models.

We reconstruct a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) catalyst layer (CL) and a non-woven carbon paper gas diffusion layer (GDL) by specially-designed stochastic methods. The reconstructed microstructures evidently distinguish all the participating components in the composite GDL/CL. Characterization analyses with respect to the reconstructed GDL/CL give important structural properties such as geometrical connectivity of an individual phase, pore size distribution, and volume-specific interfacial area. Self-developed Lattice Boltzmann (LB) models are established to calculate effective transport physical properties including effective thermal/electric conductivity and effective species diffusivity of the reconstructed GDL/CL, and permeability of the reconstructed GDL. Accordingly, we obtain tortuosity values for pore or solid phase in the reconstructed GDL/CL.