Methanol steam reforming is a promising reaction in terms of hydrogen production for use in PEM fuel cells. Catalyst research has focused mainly on Cu/ZnO formulations, because of their superior selectivity to CO2 and H2. The common byproduct CO is problematic due to its poisoning effect on the anode of a downstream fuel cell. Some years ago it was shown that palladium supported on certain redu...

In this paper, the traceability of copper from the anode to the cathode and then the wire rod has been studied in terms of impurity content, microstructure, texture, recrystallization kinetics, and ductility. These characterizations were obtained based on secondary ion mass spectrometry, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray diffraction, HV hardness, and electron backscattered diffract...

The fabrication of very high-aspect ratio 3D carbon microelectrodes for Li-Ion batteries is presented. Using a pyrolysis process under inert conditions, thick layers of patterned SU-8 photoresist (up to 600 μm in height) are converted into carbon. The micro-structures resulting from this process are used as anode for a Li-Ion battery. A detailed explanation on how to create SU-8 structures of a...

The hollow-anode discharge is a special form of glow discharge. It is shown that a drastically reduced anode area is responsible for a positive anode voltage drop of 30-40 V and an increased anode sheath thickness. This leads to an ignition of a relatively dense plasma in front of the anode hole. Langmuir probe measurements inside a specially designed hollow anode plasma source give an electron...

There are several obstacles to the commercialization of PEM fuel cells.  One of the reasons is that the presence of carbon monoxide (CO) in the reformatted fuel, even at a very small scale, decreases the fuel cell performance. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of CO in reformatted fuel on PEM fuel cell performance. For this purpose, a steady state, one-dimensional and non-isoth...

We present a three-dimensional zinc-air microbattery with improved discharge rate and reduced internal resistance. The device is based on a multilayer, micron-scale, high surface area metallic scaffold ‘skeleton’. This scaffold consists of alternating copper and nickel layers supporting zinc as electrodeposited anode material. A proof-of-concept zinc-air microbattery based on this technology wa...

The theoretical mechanism of open-circuit voltages (VOC) in OSCs based on various small molecule organic materials is studied. The structure under investigation is simple planar heterojunction (PHJ) by thermal vacuum evaporation deposition. The various wide band gaps of small molecule organic materials are used to enhance the power conversion efficiency (PCE). The donor materials used in the de...

New types of energy storage are needed in conjunction with the deployment of renewable energy sources and their integration with the electrical grid. We have recently introduced a family of cathodes involving the reversible insertion of cations into materials with the Prussian Blue open-framework crystal structure. Here we report a newly developed manganese hexacyanomanganate open-framework ano...

New types of energy storage are required in conjunction with the deployment of renewable energy sources and their integration with the electrical grid. A new kind of energy storage technology is needed for short-term grid storage applications, as existing technology struggle to meet the needs of these applications at a reasonable price. We previously introduced a new family of cathode materials...

this study investigates the vertical replacement of salts, variability of electrical conductivity (ec) and soil acidity (ph) due to direct electrical current. a plexiglas cylinder 100 cm in depth with a 14 cm radius was used as a soil container and filled with uniform moist soil to 90 cm. during the experiments, the bottom 10 cm of soil in the cylinder was kept saturated. a steel bar was used a...