Liquid water transport characteristics of porous diffusion media in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells: A review

Fundamental understanding of liquid water transport in gas diffusion media (GDM) is important to improve the material and structure design of polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells. Continuum methods of two-phase flow modeling facilitate to give more details of relevant information. The proper empirical correlations of liquid water transport properties, such as capillary characteristics, water relative permeability and effective contact angle, are crucial to two phase flow modeling and cell performance prediction. In this work, researches on these properties in the last decade are reviewed. Various efforts have been devoted to determine the water transport properties for GDMs. However, most of the experimental studies are ex-situ measurements. In-situ measurements for GDMs and extending techniques available to study the catalyst layer and the microporous layer will be further challenges. Using the Leverett-Udell correlation is not recommended for quantitative modeling. The reliable Leverett-type correlation for GDMs, with the inclusion of the cosine of effective contact angle, is desirable but hard to be established for modeling two-phase flow in GDMs. A comprehensive data set of liquid water transport properties is needed for various GDM materials under different PEM fuel cell operating conditions.