No abstract

The performance of five layer membrane electrode assemblies having different characteristics of gas diffusion layers was determined at 70 C cell temperature and ambient pressure. The maximum power density at 0.6 V was 0.36 W=cm 2 for the membrane electrode assembly prepared with the gas diffusion layer having minimum thickness (SGL BC 30 type). On the other hand, the maximum power density at 0.5 V was 0.44 W=cm 2 for the membrane electrode assembly prepared with SGL BC 34 type gas diffusion layer. It was found that resistance of a membrane electrode assembly is strongly dependent on gas diffusion layer thickness. Moreover, membrane electrode assemblies prepared with carbon paper gas diffusion layers resulted in higher performance than the assembly prepared with carbon cloth gas diffusion layer. Addition of pore-forming agents, which were ammonium carbonate, ammonium bicarbonate, ammonium sulfonate, and ammonium oxalate, to the catalyst ink lowered the performance.