TY - JOUR
T1 - Bipolar polymer electrolyte interfaces for hydrogen-oxygen and direct borohydride fuel cells
AU - Arges, Christopher G.
AU - Prabhakaran, Venkateshkumar
AU - Wang, Lihui
AU - Ramani, Vijay
N1 - Funding Information:
We wish to thank the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program (under contract # N00014-10-1-0752 ; PI: Vijay Ramani) for funding this work. We acknowledge the Research Resource Center (RRC) at the University of Illinois at Chicago for access to the 360 MHz Bruker NMR instrument used during this research. We thank Mr. Jack Decloe at the SGL Group – The Carbon Company for very kindly supplying us with the hydrophilic GDLs at no charge. Vijay Ramani would also like to acknowledge the S. R. Cho Endowed Professorship for partially supporting this research and its dissemination.
PY - 2014/9/3
Y1 - 2014/9/3
N2 - Direct borohydride fuel cells (DBFCs) using liquid hydrogen peroxide as the oxidant are safe and attractive low temperature power sources for unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) as they have excellent energy and power density and do not feature compressed gases or a flammable fuel stream. One challenge to this system is the disparate pH environment between the anolyte fuel and catholyte oxidant streams. Herein, a bipolar interface membrane electrode assembly (BIMEA) is demonstrated for maintaining pH control of the anolyte and catholyte compartments of the fuel cell. The prepared DBFC with the BIMEA yielded a promising peak power density of 110 mW cm-2. This study also investigated the same BIMEA for a hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell (H 2-O2 FC). The type of gas diffusion layer used and the gas feed relative humidity were found to impact fuel cell performance. Finally, a BIMEA featuring a silver electrocatalyst at the cathode in a H 2-O2 FC was successfully demonstrated.
AB - Direct borohydride fuel cells (DBFCs) using liquid hydrogen peroxide as the oxidant are safe and attractive low temperature power sources for unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) as they have excellent energy and power density and do not feature compressed gases or a flammable fuel stream. One challenge to this system is the disparate pH environment between the anolyte fuel and catholyte oxidant streams. Herein, a bipolar interface membrane electrode assembly (BIMEA) is demonstrated for maintaining pH control of the anolyte and catholyte compartments of the fuel cell. The prepared DBFC with the BIMEA yielded a promising peak power density of 110 mW cm-2. This study also investigated the same BIMEA for a hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell (H 2-O2 FC). The type of gas diffusion layer used and the gas feed relative humidity were found to impact fuel cell performance. Finally, a BIMEA featuring a silver electrocatalyst at the cathode in a H 2-O2 FC was successfully demonstrated.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2014.04.099
DO - 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2014.04.099
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84906315528
SN - 0360-3199
VL - 39
SP - 14312
EP - 14321
JO - International Journal of Hydrogen Energy
JF - International Journal of Hydrogen Energy
IS - 26
ER -
