Gas Diffusion Medium Based on Nanocomposite Materials

This work is focused on a new family of GDL which are produced by an Italian company, SEAL S.P.A. In particular  a new light-weight carbon cloths with different surface treatments have been considered: a sample with a plasma treatment  and a sample coated with PTFE. All these GDLs were coated with a microporous layer (MPL), developed by Politecnico di Milano, based on nanocomposites. The morphological and electrical characterization of all the samples was carried out by means of different techniques. Moreover, as the aim of this work was to study the effects of gas and water transportation on cell performance by applying MPLs, fuel cell tests have been conducted to relate their characteristics to the polarization curves.