This paper reviews recent work on SOFC anode fabrication at the University of Pennsylvania. In this work, anode fabrication is based on the preparation of a porous YSZ matrix, into which electronic and catalytic components are added by impregnation of the appropriate metal salts. First, the methods used to prepare porous YSZ are described, along with a description of the structures that are obt...

Lithium metal is one of the most attractive anode materials for electrochemical energy storage. However, the growth of Li dendrites during electrochemical deposition, which leads to a low Coulombic efficiency and safety concerns, has long hindered the application of rechargeable Li-metal batteries. Here we show that a 3D current collector with a submicron skeleton and high electroactive surface...

The permeability or crossover characteristics of a typical perfluorosulfonic acid base type membrane are used for the temporal and spatial estimations of nitrogen concentration along the anode channels of a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell stack. The predicted nitrogen accumulation is then used to estimate the impact of local fuel starvation on stack voltage through the notion of apparent...

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are an environmentally friendly method for water purification and self-sustained electricity generation using microorganisms. Microsized MFCs can also be a useful power source for lab-on-a-chip and similar integrated devices. We fabricated a 1.25 μL microsized MFC containing an anode of vertically aligned, forest type multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) with a nick...

This paper is concerned with numerical studies of the anode region of a high-intensity argon arc. The anode region is divided into three subzones: the anode boundary layer, the presheath and the sheath. The governing equations of the dominating processes with the boundary conditions taken from the solutions of LTE plasmas are solved by applying the Runge±Kutta procedure. One parameter h, i.e., ...

The Reble accelerator at Sandia Laboratories is described. This accelerator was developed to provide an experimental source for studying the relevant diode physics, bea.m propagation, beam energy deposition in a gas using a radially converging e-bea.m. The nominal parameters for Reble are 1 WI, 200 kA., 20 ns e-bea.m pulse. The anode and cathode are concentric CY.linders with the anode as the i...

High-Performance Alkaline Direct Methanol Fuel Cell using a Nitrogen-Postdoped Anode Report Title A commercial PtRu/C catalyst postdoped with nitrogen demonstrates a significantly higher performance (?10–20?% improvement) in the anode of an alkaline direct methanol fuel cell than an unmodified commercial PtRu/C catalyst control. The enhanced performance shown herein is attributed at least parti...

Development of alternative propellants for Hall thruster operation is an active area of research. Xenon is the current propellant of choice for Hall thrusters, but can be costly in large thrusters and for extended test periods. Condensible propellants may offer an alternative to xenon, as they will not require costly active pumping to remove from a test facility, and may be less expensive to pu...