Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
7721469 | International Journal of Hydrogen Energy | 2013 | 8 Pages |
Abstract
In this paper, a series of short stacks with 2-cell, 6-cell and 10-cell employing phosphotungstic acid functionalized mesoporous silica (HPW-meso-silica) nanocomposite proton exchange membranes (PEMs) have been successfully fabricated, assembled and tested from room temperature to 200 °C. The effective surface area of the membrane was 20 cm2 and fabricated by a modified hot-pressing method. With the 2-cell stack, the open circuit voltage was 1.94 V and it was 5.01 V for the 6-cell stack, indicating a low gas permeability of the HPW-meso-silica membranes. With the 10-cell stack, a maximum power density of 74.4 W (equivalent to 372.1 mW cmâ2) occurs at 150 °C in H2/O2, and the stack produces a near-constant power output of 31.6 W in H2/air at 150 °C without external humidification for 50 h. The short stack also displays good performance and stability during startup and shutdown cycling testing for 8 days at 150 °C in H2/air. Although the stack test period may be too short to extract definitive conclusions, the results are very promising, demonstrating the feasibility of the new inorganic HPW-meso-silica nanocomposites as PEMs for fuel cell stacks operating at elevated temperatures in the absence of external humidification.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Chemistry
Electrochemistry
Authors
Jie Zeng, Benqin Jin, Pei Kang Shen, Beibei He, Krystina Lamb, Roland De Marco, San Ping Jiang,