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...

Sulfonated (SO(3)H-bearing) activated carbon (AC-SO(3)H) was synthesized by an aryl diazonium salt reduction process. The obtained material had a SO(3)H density of 0.64 mmol·g-1 and a specific surface area of 602 m2·g-1. The catalytic properties of AC-SO(3)H were compared with that of two commercial solid acid catalysts, Nafion NR50 and Amberlyst-15. In a 10-h esterification reaction of acetic ...

INTRODUCTION Electrode materials in high area form are of common use in electrochemical energy storage and energy generation applications as in batteries and fuel cells. Attempts to extract information regarding intrinsic properties of such highly divided materials in environments that resemble actual devices are often compromised by the presence of binders and/or additives, including complicat...

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 cross-linked imidazolium functionalized anion-exchange membranes is in-situ prepared via reaction of chloromethylated poly(styrene-b-isobutylene-b-styrene) with 1,1’-(1,6-hexanediyl)bisimidazole and N-methylimidazole. composite a small amount modified graphene oxide grafted octadecyl propyl phenyl could be further prepared. These exhibit significantly high chemical stability ionic conductiv...

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...

Herein, fully hydrocarbon-based ionomer catalyst coated membranes (CCM)s based on sulfo-phenylated polyphenylene biphenyl (sPPB-H + ) are evaluated in a proton exchange membrane water electrolyzer cell at 70 °C. In conjunction with layers incorporating Nafion® D520 ionomer, sPPB-H require lower applied potential than reference NR112 recast of equal thickness, e.g., 1.66 V vs 1.75 1 A cm −2 . In...

*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...