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Title: Computational Modeling of Degradation of Substituted Benzyltrimethyl Ammonium: Preprint

Abstract

The degradation of cations on the alkaline exchange membranes is the major challenge for alkaline membrane fuel cells. In this paper, we investigated the degradation barriers by density functional theory for substituted benzyltrimethyl ammonium (BTMA+) cations, which is one of the most commonly used cations for alkaline exchange membranes. We found that substituted cations with electron-releasing substituent groups at meta-position of the benzyl ring could result in improved degradation barriers. However, after investigating more than thirty substituted BTMA+ cations with ten different substituent groups, the largest improvement of degradation barriers is only 1.6 kcal/mol. This implies that the lifetime of alkaline membrane fuel cells could increase from a few months to a few years by using substituted BTMA+ cations, an encouraging but still limited improvement for real-world applications.

Authors:
;
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
OSTI Identifier:
1155121
Report Number(s):
NREL/CP-2C00-62309
Journal ID: ISSN 1938--6737
DOE Contract Number:  
AC36-08GO28308
Resource Type:
Conference
Resource Relation:
Journal Volume: 64; Journal Issue: 3; Conference: To be presented at the 226th Meeting of the Electrochemical Society, 5-10 October 2014, Cancun, Mexico
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION; 97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING; ALKALINE MEMBRANE FUEL CELLS; DEGRADATION BARRIERS; BENZYLTRIMETHYL AMMONIUM

Citation Formats

Long, H., and Pivovar, B. S. Computational Modeling of Degradation of Substituted Benzyltrimethyl Ammonium: Preprint. United States: N. p., 2014. Web. doi:10.1149/06403.1211ecst.
Long, H., & Pivovar, B. S. Computational Modeling of Degradation of Substituted Benzyltrimethyl Ammonium: Preprint. United States. https://doi.org/10.1149/06403.1211ecst
Long, H., and Pivovar, B. S. 2014. "Computational Modeling of Degradation of Substituted Benzyltrimethyl Ammonium: Preprint". United States. https://doi.org/10.1149/06403.1211ecst. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1155121.
@article{osti_1155121,
title = {Computational Modeling of Degradation of Substituted Benzyltrimethyl Ammonium: Preprint},
author = {Long, H. and Pivovar, B. S.},
abstractNote = {The degradation of cations on the alkaline exchange membranes is the major challenge for alkaline membrane fuel cells. In this paper, we investigated the degradation barriers by density functional theory for substituted benzyltrimethyl ammonium (BTMA+) cations, which is one of the most commonly used cations for alkaline exchange membranes. We found that substituted cations with electron-releasing substituent groups at meta-position of the benzyl ring could result in improved degradation barriers. However, after investigating more than thirty substituted BTMA+ cations with ten different substituent groups, the largest improvement of degradation barriers is only 1.6 kcal/mol. This implies that the lifetime of alkaline membrane fuel cells could increase from a few months to a few years by using substituted BTMA+ cations, an encouraging but still limited improvement for real-world applications.},
doi = {10.1149/06403.1211ecst},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1155121}, journal = {},
issn = {1938--6737},
number = 3,
volume = 64,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 2014},
month = {Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 2014}
}

Conference:
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