Water transport in complex, non-wetting porous layers with applications to water management in low temperature fuel cells

TL;DRAbstract

An experimental setup was designed to visualize water percolation inside the porous transport layer, PTL, of proton exchange membrane, PEM, fuel cells and identify the relevant characterization parameters. In parallel with the observation of the water movement, the injection pressure (pressure required to transport water through the PTL) was measured. A new scaling for the drainage in porous media has been proposed based on the ratio between the input and the dissipated energies during percolation. A proportional dependency was obtained between the energy ratio and a non-dimensional time and this relationship is not dependent on the flow regime; stable displacement or capillary fingering. Experimental results show that for different PTL samples (from different manufacturers) the proportionality is different. The identification of this proportionality allows a unique characterization of PTLs with respect to water transport. This scaling has relevance in porous media flows ranging far be

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