Influence of PTFE coating on gas diffusion backing for unitized regenerative polymer electrolyte fuel cells

Gas diffusion backings (GDBs) with various PTFE loadings for unitized regenerative polymer fuel cells (URFCs) were prepared and the relations between the PTFE loading amount and the URFC performance were examined. As for the GDB of the hydrogen electrode, both the fuel cell and water electrolysis performances were not affected by the amount of PTFE loading on the hydrogen side GDB. However, the URFC performances significantly depended on the PTFE loading amount of the GDB for the oxygen electrode; during the fuel cell and water electrolysis operations, URFC showed higher performances with smaller PTFE loadings but the cell with no PTFE-coated GDB showed a very deteriorated fuel cell performance. Cycle properties of the URFC revealed that the efficiency of the URFC decreased with the increasing cycles when the PTFE loading on oxygen side GDB was too low, however, a stable operation can be achieved with the appropriate PTFE loading on the GDB.