U.S. DOE Progress Towards Developing Low-Cost, High Performance, Durable Polymer Electrolyte Membranes for Fuel Cell Applications

Membranes

Cassidy Houchins⁴  Greg J. Kleen¹  Jacob S. Spendelow³  John Kopasz²  David Peterson¹  Nancy L. Garland¹  Donna Lee Ho¹  Jason Marcinkoski¹  Kathi Epping Martin¹  Reginald Tyler¹ 

[1] U.S. Department of Energy, Washington, DC 20585, USA; E-Mails:;Argonne National Lab, Lemont, IL 60439, USA; E-Mail:;Los Alamos National Lab, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA; E-Mail:;SRA International, Inc., Fairfax, VA 22033, USA; E-Mail:

关键词: polymer electrolyte membranes;    fuel cells;    proton exchange electrolytes;    PEMFC;    direct methanol fuel cells;    DMFC;   

DOI  :  10.3390/membranes2040855

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Low cost, durable, and selective membranes with high ionic conductivity are a priority need for wide-spread adoption of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) and direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs). Electrolyte membranes are a major cost component of PEMFC stacks at low production volumes. PEMFC membranes also impose limitations on fuel cell system operating conditions that add system complexity and cost. Reactant gas and fuel permeation through the membrane leads to decreased fuel cell performance, loss of efficiency, and reduced durability in both PEMFCs and DMFCs. To address these challenges, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Fuel Cell Technologies Program, in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, supports research and development aimed at improving ion exchange membranes for fuel cells. For PEMFCs, efforts are primarily focused on developing materials for higher temperature operation (up to 120 °C) in automotive applications. For DMFCs, efforts are focused on developing membranes with reduced methanol permeability. In this paper, the recently revised DOE membrane targets, strategies, and highlights of DOE-funded projects to develop new, inexpensive membranes that have good performance in hot and dry conditions (PEMFC) and that reduce methanol crossover (DMFC) will be discussed.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2012 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.