Preparation and electrical properties of carbon paper using chopped carbon fiber

In this work, we prepared the carbon paper from chopped carbon fibers using a gas diffusion matrix in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells by wet processing. The process of making carbon paper using wet processing is consisted of the three steps involving the dispersion of chopped carbon fibers, the preparation of the carbon fiber web, the impregnating of phenol resin. This work was focused on finding the optimal surfactant to make the carbon paper with 2D orientation of carbon fibers by investigating the dispersion state of carbon fibers in different dispersion solutions. Furthermore, the effect of phenol resin and carbon black contents on properties of electric conductivity was analyzed. As a result, it is confirmed that the carbon fiber was well dispersed when using sodium dodecyl sulfate as a surfactant, and the carbon paper with 8 wt% of phenol and 5 wt% of carbon black contents showed the most excellent electrical property.