• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.16-22
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• 2024

Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells have the advantage of low operating temperatures and fast startup and response characteristics compared to others. Simulation studies are actively researched because their cost and time benefits. In this study, the resistance of water residual in the gas diffusion layer (GDL) of the unit cell was added to the existing equation to compare the actual data with the model data. The experiments were conducted with a 25 cm² unit cell, and the samples were separated into stopping times of 0, 10, and 60 minutes following primary impedance measurement, activation, and polarization curve data acquisition. This gives 0, 10, and 60 minutes for the residual water in the GDL to evaporate. Without the rest period, the magnitude of the performance improvement was not significantly different at the same potential and flow rate, but the rest period did improve the performance of the membrane electrode assembly when measuring impedance. By changing the magnitude of the resistance reduction to an overvoltage, the voltage difference between the fuel cell model with and without residual water was compared, and the error rate in the high current density region, which is dominated by concentration losses, was reduced.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.109-114
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• 2012

The cathode catalyst layer in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) was fabricated with anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) template and its structure was characterized with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis. The SEM analysis showed that the catalyst layer was fabricated the Pt nanowire with uniform shape and size. The BET analysis showed that the volume of pores in range of 20-100 nm was enhanced by AAO template. The electrochemical properties with the membrane electrode assembly (MEA) were evaluated by current-voltage polarization measurements and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The results showed that the MEA with AAO template reduced the mass transfer resistance and improved the cell performance by approximately 25% through controlling the structure of catalyst layer.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.523-530
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• 2019

For the low-Pt electrodes for polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEMFCs), the optimization of ionomer content for anode catalyst layers was carried out. A commercial catalyst of 20 wt.% Pt/C was used instead of 50 wt.% Pt/C which is commonly used for PEMFCs. The ionomer content varies from 0.6 to 1.2 based on ionomer to carbon ratio (I/C) and the catalyst layer is formed over the electrolyte by the ultrasonic spray process. Evaluation of the prepared MEA in the unit cell showed that the optimal ionomer content of the air electrode was 0.8 on the I/C basis, while the hydrogen electrode was optimal at the relatively high ionomer content of 1.0. In addition, a large difference in cell performance was observed when the ionomer content of the hydrogen electrode was changed. Increasing the ionomer content from 0.6 to 1.0 by I/C in a hydrogen electrode with 0.05 mg/㎠ platinum loading resulted in more than double cell performance improvements on a 0.6 V. Through the analysis of various electrochemical properties in the single cell, it was assumed that the change in ionomer content of the hydrogen electrode affects the water flow between the hydrogen and air electrodes bounded by the membrane in the cell, which affects the overall performance of the cell. A more specific study will be carried out to understand the water flow mechanism in the future, and this study will show that the optimization process of hydrogen electrode can also be a very important cell design variable for the low-Pt and high-performance MEA.