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Title: Enhanced Water Management of Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells with Additive-Containing Microporous Layers

Abstract

This work describes the performance improvement of a polymer electrolyte fuel cell with a novel class of microporous layers (MPLs) that incorporates hydrophilic additives: one with 30 μm aluminosilicate fibers and another with multiwalled carbon nanotubes with a domain size of 5 μm. Higher current densities at low potentials were observed for cells with the additive-containing MPLs compared to a baseline cell with a conventional MPL, which correlate with improvements in water management. This is also observed for helium and oxygen experiments and by the lower amount of liquid water in the cell, as determined by neutron radiography. Furthermore, carbon-nanotube-containing MPLs demonstrates improved durability compared to the baseline MPL. Microstructural analyses including nanotomography demonstrate that the filler material in both the additive-containing MPLs provide preferential transport pathways for liquid water, which correlate with ex situ measurements. The main advantage provided by these MPLs is improved liquid-water removal from the cathode catalyst layer, resulting in enhanced oxygen delivery to the electrocatalyst sites.

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [3]; ORCiD logo [4];  [5];  [5];  [6];  [4]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [7]
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  2. Tufts Univ., Medford, MA (United States)
  3. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
  4. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  5. National Inst. of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD (United States)
  6. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  7. Tufts Univ., Medford, MA (United States); Univ. of California, Irvine, CA (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Sustainable Transportation Office. Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technologies Office; USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Fuel Cell Technologies Program
OSTI Identifier:
1480048
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1493735; OSTI ID: 1564215; OSTI ID: 1571911; OSTI ID: 1968459
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-18-26360
Journal ID: ISSN 2574-0962
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC52-06NA25396; AC02-06CH11357; AC05-00OR22725; AC02-05CH11231
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
ACS Applied Energy Materials
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 1; Journal Issue: 11; Journal ID: ISSN 2574-0962
Publisher:
American Chemical Society (ACS)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
25 ENERGY STORAGE; Energy Sciences; Fuel Cell; GDL; Gas Diffusion Layer; MPL; Micro-porous Layer; Fuel cells, microporous layer, water management, transport phenomena, material design; Fuel cells; Material design; Microporous layer; Transport phenomena; Water management

Citation Formats

Spernjak, Dusan, Mukundan, Rangachary, Borup, Rodney L., Connolly, Liam G., Zackin, Benjamin I., De Andrade, Vincent, Wojcik, Michael, Parkinson, Dilworth Y., Jacobson, David L., Hussey, Daniel S., More, Karren L., Chan, Thomas, Weber, Adam Z., and Zenyuk, Iryna V. Enhanced Water Management of Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells with Additive-Containing Microporous Layers. United States: N. p., 2018. Web. doi:10.1021/acsaem.8b01059.
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Spernjak, Dusan, Mukundan, Rangachary, Borup, Rodney L., Connolly, Liam G., Zackin, Benjamin I., De Andrade, Vincent, Wojcik, Michael, Parkinson, Dilworth Y., Jacobson, David L., Hussey, Daniel S., More, Karren L., Chan, Thomas, Weber, Adam Z., & Zenyuk, Iryna V. Enhanced Water Management of Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells with Additive-Containing Microporous Layers. United States. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsaem.8b01059
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Spernjak, Dusan, Mukundan, Rangachary, Borup, Rodney L., Connolly, Liam G., Zackin, Benjamin I., De Andrade, Vincent, Wojcik, Michael, Parkinson, Dilworth Y., Jacobson, David L., Hussey, Daniel S., More, Karren L., Chan, Thomas, Weber, Adam Z., and Zenyuk, Iryna V. Fri . "Enhanced Water Management of Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells with Additive-Containing Microporous Layers". United States. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsaem.8b01059. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1480048.
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@article{osti_1480048,
title = {Enhanced Water Management of Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells with Additive-Containing Microporous Layers},
author = {Spernjak, Dusan and Mukundan, Rangachary and Borup, Rodney L. and Connolly, Liam G. and Zackin, Benjamin I. and De Andrade, Vincent and Wojcik, Michael and Parkinson, Dilworth Y. and Jacobson, David L. and Hussey, Daniel S. and More, Karren L. and Chan, Thomas and Weber, Adam Z. and Zenyuk, Iryna V.},
abstractNote = {This work describes the performance improvement of a polymer electrolyte fuel cell with a novel class of microporous layers (MPLs) that incorporates hydrophilic additives: one with 30 μm aluminosilicate fibers and another with multiwalled carbon nanotubes with a domain size of 5 μm. Higher current densities at low potentials were observed for cells with the additive-containing MPLs compared to a baseline cell with a conventional MPL, which correlate with improvements in water management. This is also observed for helium and oxygen experiments and by the lower amount of liquid water in the cell, as determined by neutron radiography. Furthermore, carbon-nanotube-containing MPLs demonstrates improved durability compared to the baseline MPL. Microstructural analyses including nanotomography demonstrate that the filler material in both the additive-containing MPLs provide preferential transport pathways for liquid water, which correlate with ex situ measurements. The main advantage provided by these MPLs is improved liquid-water removal from the cathode catalyst layer, resulting in enhanced oxygen delivery to the electrocatalyst sites.},
doi = {10.1021/acsaem.8b01059},
journal = {ACS Applied Energy Materials},
number = 11,
volume = 1,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Sep 28 00:00:00 EDT 2018},
month = {Fri Sep 28 00:00:00 EDT 2018}
}
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Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1021/acsaem.8b01059
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Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 26 works
Citation information provided by
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Figures / Tables:

Table 1 Table 1: Basic Properties and Composition of the Four GDL and MPL Materials
All figures and tables (9 total)
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    Works referencing / citing this record:

    Interaction of Pore Size and Hydrophobicity/Hydrophilicity for Improved Oxygen and Water Transport through Microporous Layers
    journal, January 2019

    • Simon, Christoph; Endres, Joseph; Nefzger-Loders, Benjamin
    • Journal of The Electrochemical Society, Vol. 166, Issue 13
    • DOI: 10.1149/2.1111913jes
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