Antimony and boron support to aluminum's hydrolysis performance and an application of PEM fuel cell

Abstract

In this study, Al-Sb-B (aluminum-antimony-boron) ternary alloys are designed to improve the hydrolysis performance in alkaline media through the corrosive effects of intermetallic Al-Sb and Al-B particles. The maximum hydrogen generation rate of an ASB1 (Al-2.97 wt% Sb-0.99 wt% B) alloy is 4.78 times higher than ASB0 (Al-3 wt% Sb) alloy and 8.36 times higher than pure Al at certain temperatures. While the average hydrogen generation rate (HR) of pure Al is 2.66 ml cm−2 min−1, ASB1 alloy's HR is reached up to 16.78 ml cm−2 min−1. This improvement is achieved by sweeping the Al surface with the convection effect of the secondary phase particles (Al-Sb and Al-B) caused by the temperature fluctuations during the exothermic reaction. At 323 K–343 K temperature range, the apparent activation energy (EA) is calculated as 50.2 kJ mol−1 for pure Al and the lowest EA is calculated as 33.7 kJ mol−1 in ASB0 alloy. A selected alloy is tested in a Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell to observe its system performance. ASB3 (Al-2.913 wt% Sb-0.913 wt% B) alloy is selected for the PEM fuel cell application experiments and 2.72 mW output power is obtained. Thanks to alloying Al with other metals, different power demands of a PEM fuel cell flow requirements may be optimized.