Matthias Breitwieser

Direct deposition of proton exchange membranes enabling high performance hydrogen fuel cells

We apply drop-on-demand inkjet printing to fabricate proton exchange membranes for polymer electrolyte fuel cells. This completely substitutes the commonly used membrane foil. A Nafion® dispersion is deposited directly onto the catalyst layers of anode and cathode gas diffusion electrodes, and the two electrodes are pressed together with the membrane layers facing each other. Fuel cells constructed utilizing this method reveal a thin overall membrane thickness of 8–25 μm and a good adhesion of membrane and catalyst layers. This results in a membrane ionic resistance of only 12.7 mΩ cm2 without compromising hydrogen crossover, which was determined to be less than 2 mA cm−2. We achieve a cell power density exceeding 4 W cm−2 with pure oxygen as cathode fuel, which, to our knowledge, is the highest reported power density with a Nafion® membrane hydrogen fuel cell. The membrane shows a stable performance over the entire range of reactant gas humidification from 0 to 100% relative humidity. Power densities exceeding 1.0 W cm−2 are achieved under dry operation with air as cathode fuel. A 576 hour combined mechanical and chemical accelerated stress test reveals no significant degradation in terms of hydrogen crossover, indicating a promising lifetime of the membrane.

Directly deposited Nafion/TiO2 composite membranes for high power medium temperature fuel cells

This work presents a simple production method for TiO2 reinforced Nafion® membranes which are stable up to a 120 °C operation temperature. The novel TiO2 reinforced membranes yield a maximum power density of 2.02 W cm−2 at 120 °C; H2/O2; 0.5/0.5 L min−1; 90% RH, 300/300 kPaabs. This is 2.8 times higher than the highest power density for TiO2 reinforced membranes so far published in literature. The described membranes even exceed the maximum power density of a commercial Nafion® HP membrane in an identical measurement setup at 100 °C and 120 °C. Compared to the commercial Nafion® HP membrane the maximum power density was increased by 27% and 9% at 100 °C and 120 °C, respectively. The membrane is manufactured by drop-casting a dispersion of Nafion® and TiO2 nanoparticles onto both the anode and cathode gas diffusion electrodes. Furthermore pure Nafion® membranes manufactured by the same method had higher membrane resistances at temperatures >100 °C than TiO2-reinforced Nafion® membranes.