Polymer electrolyte fuel cells have the potential to revolutionize energy conversion due to their very high energy densities.  While high energy densities have been achieved for the hydrogen powered proton exchange membrane  (PEM), the application of polymer electrolyte fuel cells using other fuels has been somewhat limited.  If this technology could be made more fuel versatile, its application could be dramatically expanded enabling compact systems utilizing fossil or renewable fuel conversion with much higher efficiencies than can be achieved with het engines at the moderate temperatures of operation of polymer based fuel cells, = 120�C.  Two recent developments have the potential to revolutionize this technology.  In the first we will discuss, thin robust anion exchange membranes (AEMs) have recently become available.  Electrocatalysis is more facile in base and so AEM  fuel cells should be able to oxidize more complex fuels and easily break carbon-carbon bonds using non-precious metal catalysts.  We will show how AEM fuel cells utilizing a variety of catalysts can oxidize fuels such as methanol, ethanol, and even methane. In particular we will focus on core shell particles with Ni as the shell and iron as the core, synthesized by a simple surfactant mediated wet chemical synthesis..  These particles can be tuned to oxidize a variety of fuels and have many interesting properties.  The second recent advancement is the use of molecular catalysts in fuel cell applications.  Molecular catalysts have the potential for very high selectivity's and if properly immobilized should enable very high current densities.  We will report on a Ru based system in an AEM fuel cell that easily oxidizes methanol.  We also show that Pt based systems have potential for a direct low temperature methane fuel cell on conventional PEMs in fuel cell applications.

Enabling fuel versatility in polymer electrolyte fuel cells with state of the art anion exchange membranes and/or novel molecular catalysts

248th National Meeting (2014)

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