Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-30-2019
Department
Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics
Abstract
In this work, capillary rise experiments were performed to assess the wetting properties of carbon-ionomer (CI) films. The samples were attached to a micro-balance and then immersed into liquid water to (i) measure the mass gain from the liquid uptake and (ii) estimate the (external) contact angle to water (typical value around 140°). The results showed that drying the CI films under low vacuum significantly impacted the CI film wettability. The influence of the ionomer content on the CI films’ wettability was investigated with various ionomer to carbon (I/C) ratios: 0.8, 1.0, 1.2 and 1.4. No significant variation of the contact angle to water extracted from the capillary rise experiment was measured. However, water uptake increased with the I/C ratio suggesting a more hydrophilic behavior. This observation was in good agreement with the measurement from the sessile drop method showing a slight decrease of the contact angle to water: from 155° for an I/C of 0.8 to 135° for I/C = 1.4.
Publication Title
Journal of the Electrochemical Society
Recommended Citation
Abbou, S.,
Tajiri, K.,
Alofari, K. T.,
Medici, E. F.,
Haug, A. T.,
&
Allen, J. S.
(2019).
Capillary penetration method for measuring wetting properties of carbon ionomer films for proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) applications.
Journal of the Electrochemical Society,
166(7), F3227-F3233.
http://doi.org/10.1149/2.0271907jes
Retrieved from: https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/michigantech-p/268
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Version
Publisher's PDF
Publisher's Statement
© The Author(s) 2019. Published by ECS. Publisher’s version of record: https://doi.org/10.1149/2.0271907jes