Direct borohydride fuel cell: Main issues met by the membrane–electrodes-assembly and potential solutions

The direct borohydride fuel cell (DBFC) is a fuel cell for which there is consensus about its promising commercial future as a portable power system. However, its development faces three main issues: the borohydride hydrolysis (issue 1) and crossover (issue 2), and the cost (issue 3). These issues are encountered by the membrane–electrodes-assembly. By a discussion around these three issues, the present paper reviews the experimental aspects. The discussion stresses on the opportunities of improvements and reviews the potential solutions that are proposed in the open literature. For each issue, the best solution seems to be a combination of improvements. The issue 1 may be solved thanks to a gold-based anode catalyst and an optimized fuel. The solution to the issue 2 may be a more efficient membrane combined with an optimized fuel and an inactive-towards-borohydride cathode catalyst like MnO2. Regarding the issue 3, cheaper materials and better fuel use efficiency are the keys. The DBFC is still in a development phase with a small number of years of R&D invested and it appears that there are real improvement opportunities on the path of the DBFC marketing.