Fuel cell
AssigneeKabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
InventorTomoaki Arimura
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Abstract
A fuel cell comprises a unit cell having a membrane-like electrode unit including an electrolyte membrane, a fuel electrode consisting essentially of a catalyst layer and a diffusion layer, which are formed in the order mentioned on one surface of the electrolyte membrane, and an air electrode consisting essentially of a catalyst layer and a diffusion layer, which are formed in the order mentioned on the other surface of the electrolyte membrane. The diffusion layer of at least the fuel electrode includes a carbon paper prepared by laminating carbon fibers, and a specified water repellent polymer is arranged to cover the surface of the carbon fiber of the carbon paper or is loaded in the clearance among the carbon fibers.
Claims6
A fuel cell comprising a unit cell having a membrane-like electrode unit including an electrolyte membrane, a fuel electrode having a methanol aqueous solution supplied thereto as a fuel, and consisting essentially of a catalyst layer and a diffusion layer, which are formed in the order mentioned on one surface of the electrolyte membrane, and an air electrode having an oxidizing gas supplied thereto, and consisting essentially of a catalyst layer and a diffusion layer, which are formed in the order mentioned on the other surface of the electrolyte membrane,
- wherein the diffusion layer of at least the fuel electrode among the fuel electrode and the air electrode includes a carbon paper prepared by laminating carbon fibers, and a water repellent polymer represented by general formula (I) given below is arranged to cover the surface of the carbon fiber of the carbon paper or is loaded in the clearance among the carbon fibers of the carbon paper:
- where R1 denotes a divalent to tetravalent element, R2 denotes a hydrocarbon functional group or an aromatic functional group, and n denotes an integer of 2 or more.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.