Roll-to-roll stack and lamination of gas diffusion layer in multilayer structured membrane electrode assembly

Abstract

A membrane electrode assembly is the core component of a proton-exchange membrane fuel cell stack. It consists of multilayer structured membranes which are flexible, heterogeneous and have variable cross section. To improve the efficiency of membrane electrode assembly processing and manufacturing, a roll-to-roll system with gas diffusion layer is designed. By peeling the protective membrane and the upper and lower gas diffusion layers’ hot-pressing, proton-exchange membrane is manufactured into a five-layer catalyst-coated membrane. Then, the catalyst-coated membrane is manufactured into membrane electrode assembly by multilayer membrane breakpoint die-cutting and laying-off. The system integrates multiple key technologies, including roll-to-roll precise feeding, gas diffusion layer multi-degree accurate operation and multichannel temperature control, to realize the precise positioning of flexible multilayer membrane and brittle gas diffusion layer. The tension inhomogeneity and critical wrinkling tension are modeled for web traveling in the continuous roll-to-roll manufacturing equipment. The proposed roll-to-roll stack and lamination system effectively combines discontinuous hot-pressing, die-cutting, laying-off technics to realize the high-efficiency manufacturing of membrane electrode assembly.

Engineering Catalyst Layers for Next‐Generation Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells: A Review of Design, Materials, and Methods

“…The blade is then pulled across the substrate (or vice versa), forming a CL with a smooth consistent thickness. [ 278 ] Owing to the ability to feed large volumes of substrate through the mechanical rollers, there have been efforts to demonstrate efficient roll‐to‐roll MEA preparation techniques using these methods, [ 469 ] which improves the efficiency and cost of the manufacturing process. Recently, Mauger et al.…”

A review on gas diffusion layer in proton exchange membrane fuel cell: Materials and manufacturing

“…52 The manufactured GDL could be used to rapidly and efficiently prepare MEA by the roll-to-roll stacking and lamination process. 53 Traditional methods. The preparation of the MPS and the MPL is part of the GDL manufacturing procedure.…”

Flexible electronics manufacturing technology and equipment

“…Due to the advantages of strong versatility and its great potential in volume production, the R2R manufacturing equipment has been successfully used in papermaking, printing, textiles, and other traditional industries. In recent years, it has also been widely used in the production of RFID tags [92,93], flexible displays [94,95], solar/fuel cells [96], printed electronics [46], and flexible perovskite components [97], etc. As shown in Figure 11(a), the R2R manufacturing equipment is mainly composed of three areas, i.e., the unloading area for substrate winding conveyance, the processing area for intermediate processing, and the receiving area for substrate winding collection.…”

“…The lateral vibration control of the substrate was achieved by applying transverse feedback control force on the substrate surface [105]. The research achievements have been successfully applied to chip peeling [42], thin-film heterostructure manufacturing [106], and fuel cell production [97]. Figure 12 shows a kind of R2R manufacturing equipment that combines the R2R process and flip chip technology.…”