The CL fabrication process is modeled by starting with an initial state corresponding to a perfectly dispersed catalyst ink. This is achieved by randomly inserting DEM particles in the simulation gy through Rayleigh waves . The Rayleigh time-step for this system was determined to be 3.5 × 10 -10 s. However, considering the stability of the simulations, the fundamental time-step was chosen to be 1 × 10 -11 s. Following the initialisation of the system, the combined van der Waals attraction and electrostatic repulsion between the particles were applied using the colloid and Yukawa/colloid pair styles implemented in LAMMPS. The system was then minimised using a conjugate gradient algorithm without time integration, to ensure the stability of the system. The particles were then thermalised to 300K and held thermostatted at said temperature using a Langevin thermostat .