OBJECTIVE Although waste is traditionally assessed as a pollutant which needs to be reduced or lessened, its management is certainly necessary. Nowadays, biological fuel cells, through the direct conversion of organic matter to electricity using biocatalysts, represent a technology able to produce sustainable energy by means of waste treatment. This study aims to propose a mean to generate ener...

A modified Nafion dispersion for direct screen printing was developed and characterized. Commercial solution neutralized to its sodium form the solvent replaced by a screen-printing-compatible solvent. The has optimized rheological properties including shear-thinning behavior, thixotropy, moderate yield stress. elemental composition chemical states of were characterized X-ray photoelectron spec...

Progress Report and Future Directions The fuel cell research cluster began with the DOE EPSCoR implementation grant “Fuel Cells: A Mobile Energy Source for the 21 Century” in July of 2001. The focus of this research was developing new and improved materials for hydrogen production and PEM fuel cells. Building on the major successes of this project, we proposed and were granted a renewed impleme...

A helicon plasma sputtering system is used to deposit small amounts of platinum on microporous carbon support composed of Vulcan XC 72 carbon particles (known as gas diffusion layer GDL) to form Pt catalysed electrodes for proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC). Electrodes with low Pt loading are prepared, assembled in custom-made membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) and tested for the hyd...

Fluorinated quaternary ammonium-containing polymers were used as catalyst binders in microbial fuel cell (MFC) cathodes. The performance of the cathodes was examined and compared to NAFION and other sulfonated aromatic cathode catalyst binders using linear sweep voltammetry (LSV), impedance spectroscopy, and performance tests in single chamber air-cathode MFCs. The cathodes with quaternary ammo...

Over the last decade, there has been a wealth of application for immobilized and stabilized enzymes including biocatalysis, biosensors, and biofuel cells. In most bioelectrochemical applications, enzymes or organelles are immobilized onto an electrode surface with the use of some type of polymer matrix. This polymer scaffold should keep the enzymes stable and allow for the facile diffusion of m...

Ionic polymer-metal composites (IPMCs) consist of a perfluorinated ionomer membrane (usually Nafion or Flemion). The ionomer is plated on both faces with a noble metal such as gold or platinum. It is neutralized with a certain amount of counterions that balance the electrical charge of anions covalently fixed to the backbone membrane. IPMCs are electroactive materials that can be used as actuat...

The complex environments experienced by water molecules in the hydrophilic channels of Nafion membranes are studied by ultrafast infrared pump-probe spectroscopy. A wavelength dependent study of the vibrational lifetime of the O-D stretch of dilute HOD in H(2)O confined in Nafion membranes provides evidence of two distinct ensembles of water molecules. While only two ensembles are present at ea...

The paper describes an EasyTest cell developed for simple, safe and inexpensive to run testing and optimisation of the active materials (catalysts, catalytic supports, polymer membrane electrolytes) and electrode structures utilized in PEM Fuel cells and Electrolysers. The main advantages of the new EasyTest technique are demonstrated by a comparative study on the performance of two types of me...

*corresponding author: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO, 80401, USA email address: [email protected] 1. Present address: Materials Synthesis and Integrated Devices Group, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, 87545, USA 2. Present address: Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720...