Proceedings of MATSUS Fall 2023 Conference (MATSUSFall23)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.matsus.2023.119
Publication date: 18th July 2023
With the recent trends in hydrogen technologies, scale-up fabrication of membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) for the electrochemical systems such as fuel cells and electrolyzers is gaining significant attention. Companies and researchers are focusing on diverse large-scale electrode fabrication processes, such as roll-to-roll and screen-printing. However, optimizing such processes is not trivial, and a number of parameters, including but not limited to catalyst type, solvent, ink mixing, electrode coating and drying, play a role in the quality of the final product. Correlations between the fabrication parameters and resulting electrode microstructure, properties and performance are important to understand, in order to better control the processes. Advanced imaging and spectroscopy techniques, together with image and data processing to quantify important structural and compositional parameters, play an important role in this understanding. Information about catalyst distribution, composition, and surface chemistry can be correlated to ink characteristics, and finally to electrode structures, component distribution and properties, and their effect on MEA performance can be investigated. This talk will offer a plethora of examples of these advanced characterization and quantification techniques within a collaborative project on Overall Research on Electrode Coating Processes (OREO) between four institutions: University of Connecticut, Colorado School of Mines, National Renewable Energy Lab and Fraunhofer ISE.