Ceria and Doped Ceria Nanoparticle Additives For Polymer Fuel Cell Lifetime Improvement

摘要

Polymer electrolyte fuel cell membranes are degraded by oxygen free radical attack. The addition of cerium oxide and doped cerium oxide nanoparticles improves membrane stability as measured by open circuit voltage and low humidity accelerated stress testing. In this work we varied the crystallite size of ceria nanoparticles and investigated their role in enhancing durability of the PEM fuel cell. We found that the ratio of the free radical production to hydrogen peroxide decomposition rates provides a novel approach to characterize the efficiency of free radical scavenging catalysts. Nanoparticle crystallite size and doping plays a significant role in determining the surface area normalized efficiency of ceria based free radical scavengers.