Direct ethanol fuel cells (DEFCs) offer a high degree of design flexibility, ranging from single cell to massive multi-cell that can be used in various applications, including portable devices, transportation, and stationary applications. Unfortunately, the most significant barrier commercialization DEFCs is getting low-cost permeability, conductivity performance, extended durability polymer el...

Output characteristics of fuel cells are affected by a large number of parameters such as geometry, dimensions, construction materials and conditions of supplying fluids. In this paper a mathematical model followed by a two-dimensional numerical approach has been presented to study the fuel cell parametrically. Effect of oxygen concentration at gas diffusion layer entrance, temperature and ...

A novel proton exchange membrane has been prepared using sulfonated poly(styrene-divinylbenzene) resin(SPSDR)–polyethylene(PE). The membrane is characterized by FT-IR, SEM and TGA/DSC. Water uptake, oxidative resistance, ionic conductivity and methanol permeability are measured to evaluate its performance in a direct methanol fuel cell. The on-set degradation temp...

Polymer electrolyte based fuel cells (PEFCs) are always in the forefront of fuel cell revolution. Recently a wide variety of application of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in PEFC components has been exploited. The impetus is to improve the PEFC performance by taking advantages of CNTs’ extraordinary physical, chemical and electronic properties. Herein, we briefly review these efforts with an attempt t...

Electrochemistry on gases originated in 1839 with Grove's "gaseous voltaic battery". Over 90 years later, Bacon built a demonstration fuel cell consisting of porous nickel electrodes. He is credited with creating a stable three phase reaction zone of electrode, gas, and electrolyte. Today's fuel cell electrodes are far more sophisticated and lend themselves to other important electrochemical pr...

It is generally accepted that the global demand for energy will dramatically rise in the future. Fuel cells are promising as efficient, non-polluting power sources that produces little noise and have no moving parts. The main problem is the high cost of manufacturing the devices, which has largely limited them to a handful of exotic applications. The objective of the present project is the deve...

In this study, a series of sulfonated hydrocarbon pentablock terpolymers (NEXAR® Polymers) with different ion exchange capacities (1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 meq g−1) were characterized investigated as membranes ionomers in hydrogen fuel cells. All NEXAR® Membranes exhibited higher proton conductivity (>0.2 S cm−1 at 80 °C, 90% RH) than Nafion (the most frequently used polymer membrane cells). The Membr...

This study explores different hybridization levels of a midsized vehicle powered by a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell stack. The energy buffer considered is a leadacid-type battery. The effects of the battery size on the overall energy losses for different drive cycles are determined when dynamic programming determines the optimal current drawn from the fuel cell system. The different hy...

Various polybenzimidazole (PBI)-based ion-exchange films were prepared and thoroughly characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, proton conductivity, and water uptake for possible use as fuel cell membranes. Upon the increase in the flexibility of the PBI-based polymer films (e.g., poly(oxyphenylene benzimidazole) (OPBI) and sulfonated OPBI (s-OPBI)), the membranes exhibi...