Water Maintenance-Free Inorganic Proton Conductors for PEM Fuel Cells

摘要

This Phase I project identified and characterized novel inorganic proton conducting composite membranes which do not require water maintenance systems. These materials can be used as membranes in proton exchange membrane fuel cells as well as a wide variety of hydrogen separation applications. This technology could be of significant economic and technical benefit to the Army and industries by providing low cost, high reliability, high efficiency, low temperature fuel cells without water management systems. Additionally, these membranes could act as novel reactor assemblies for carrying out hydrogenation and dehydrogenation reactions at potentially lower costs and higher yields compared to conventional processes. Performance was found to depend on membrane preparation. Hot pressing method was best for preparing fully dense membranes. Techniques for mixing and milling composites, as well as particle size of second phase were all found to affect the performance of the solid electrolytes. Order- disorder transition temperature of solid electrolyte into a superprotonic conducting phase was found to be influenced by the presence of the second phase in the composite. A maximum ionic conductivity measured was 6 x 10(exp -3)S/cm, and maximum power density of 4 mW/sq cm in H2/O2 fuel cell.