Final Report on LDRD Project: Elucidating Performance of Proton-Exchange-Membrane Fuel Cells via Computational Modeling with Experimental Discovery and Validation

摘要

The acronym PEM refers to Proton Exchange Membrane or alternatively Polymer Electrolyte Membrane. Though the concept of fuel cells was demonstrated more than 160 years ago by Sir William Robert Grove (an English lawyer turned scientist) and the first generation of PEM fuel cells (PEMFCs) were developed in the early 1960s by General Electric for the Gemini space program, research and development in PEMFCs didn't receive much attention and funding from the federal government (in particular, the US Department of Energy) and industry until 15 20 years ago when breakthrough methods for reducing the amount of platinum required for PEMFCs were developed and subsequently improved by Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and others. Notably, Raistrick (1986) of LANL came up with a catalyst-ink technique for fabricating the electrodes. This breakthrough method made it possible to increase the utilization of active catalyst and at the same time to reduce the amount of precious platinum metal needed. Readers who are interested in more detailed accounts of the history of fuel cells in general and PEMFCs in particular are referred to two extensive reviews by Sandstede et al. (2003) and Chen (2003), respectively.