scholarly journals Degradation Investigation of Electrocatalyst in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell at a High Energy Efficiency

Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (13) ◽  
pp. 3932
Author(s):  
Jie Song ◽  
Qing Ye ◽  
Kun Wang ◽  
Zhiyuan Guo ◽  
Meiling Dou

The development of high efficient stacks is critical for the wide spread application of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) in transportation and stationary power plant. Currently, the favorable operation conditions of PEMFCs are with single cell voltage between 0.65 and 0.7 V, corresponding to energy efficiency lower than 57%. For the long term, PEMFCs need to be operated at higher voltage to increase the energy efficiency and thus promote the fuel economy for transportation and stationary applications. Herein, PEMFC single cell was investigated to demonstrate its capability to working with voltage and energy efficiency higher than 0.8 V and 65%, respectively. It was demonstrated that the PEMFC encountered a significant performance degradation after the 64 h operation. The cell voltage declined by more than 13% at the current density of 1000 mA cm−2, due to the electrode de-activation. The high operation potential of the cathode leads to the corrosion of carbon support and then causes the detachment of Pt nanoparticles, resulting in significant Pt agglomeration. The catalytic surface area of cathode Pt is thus reduced for oxygen reduction and the cell performance decreased. Therefore, electrochemically stable Pt catalyst is highly desirable for efficient PEMFCs operated under cell voltage higher than 0.8 V.

Author(s):  
Shuiyun Shen ◽  
Ziwen Ren ◽  
Silei Xiang ◽  
Shiqu Chen ◽  
Zehao Tan ◽  
...  

Abstract Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is a crucial route for energy saving, emission reduction and the development of new energy vehicles because of its high power density, high energy density as well as the low operating temperature which corresponds to fast starting and power matching. However, the rare and expensive Pt resource greatly hinders the mass production of fuel cell, and the development of highly active and durable non-precious metal catalysts toward the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in the cathode is considered to be the ultimate solution. In this article, a highly active and durable Fe-N-C catalyst was facilely derived from metal organic framework materials (MOFs), and a favorable structure of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were formed, which accounts for a desired good durability. The as-optimized catalyst has a half-wave potential of 0.84V for the ORR, which is comparable to that of commercial Pt/C. More attractively, it has good stabilities both in rotating disk electrode and single cell tests, which provides a large practical application potential in the replacement of Pt catalyst as the ORR electrocatalyst in fuel cells.


2018 ◽  
Vol 277 ◽  
pp. 241-250
Author(s):  
Olena Svietkina ◽  
Stanislav Bartashevskyi ◽  
Valeriy Nikolsky ◽  
Kostiantyn Bas ◽  
Peter Chlens ◽  
...  

Methods to increase travel distance of mine electric locomotive from one charging at the expense of fuel cells with proton-exchange membrane and to improve efficiency of the process as a result of using selective composite materials have been considered. It has been demonstrated that the use of activated natural materials will make it possible to increase membrane conductance up to 3.6·10−2Cm·cm−1; that will allow increasing energy-efficiency of fuel cells for their operation in terms of mine electric locomotives.


2020 ◽  
Vol 280 ◽  
pp. 115911
Author(s):  
Georgios Papakonstantinou ◽  
Gerardo Algara-Siller ◽  
Detre Teschner ◽  
Tanja Vidaković-Koch ◽  
Robert Schlögl ◽  
...  

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (18) ◽  
pp. 3478 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arne L. Lazar ◽  
Swantje C. Konradt ◽  
Hermann Rottengruber

This work presents an open-source, dynamic, 1D, proton exchange membrane fuel cell model suitable for real-time applications. It estimates the cell voltage based on activation, ohmic and concentration overpotentials and considers water transport through the membrane by means of osmosis, diffusion and hydraulic permeation. Simplified equations reduce the computational load to make it viable for real-time analysis, quick parameter studies and usage in complex systems like complete vehicle models. Two modes of operation for use with or without reference polarization curves allow for a flexible application even without information about cell parameters. The program code is written in MATLAB and provided under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). It is designed to be used inside of a Simulink model, which allows this fuel cell model to be used in a wide variety of 1D simulation platforms by exporting the code as C/C++.


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