Abstract
Electrochemical energy conversion and storage is key for the use of regenerative energies at large scale. A thorough understanding of the individual components, such as the ion conducting membrane and the electrode layers, can be obtained with scattering techniques on atomic to molecular length scales. The largely heterogeneous electrode layers of High-Temperature Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells are studied in this work with small- and wide-angle neutron scattering at the same time with the iMATERIA diffractometer at the spallation neutron source at J-PARC, opening a view on structural properties on atomic to mesoscopic length scales. Recent results on the proton mobility from the same samples measured with backscattering spectroscopy are put into relation with the structural findings.
Highlights
Electrochemical energy conversion plays an important role for the current change in energy infrastructure
It is clearly noticed on the 60% Pt/C (Figure 1B) that small nanoparticles tend to coalesce into larger particles or form agglomerates
The heterogeneous structure over a wide range of length scales requires experimentally that diffraction experiments are conducted over a broad range from atomic diffraction to mesoscopic Small angle neutron scattering (SANS) measurements
Summary
Electrochemical energy conversion plays an important role for the current change in energy infrastructure. Fuel cells provide a clean way of electricity production from chemical energy, e.g., for the automotive sector or stationary sector from kW to MW energy scales [1]. Electrolyzers and fuel cells are the components capable of converting between electricity and H2. A microscopic understanding of the transport processes is important in this context in order to optimize the different components of electrolyzers and fuel cells. Many different technical realizations are available depending on the required application and available power, from solid oxide fuel cells for stationary applications, working at high temperatures, to polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells working below 100 ◦ C [2]. A variety of Materials 2020, 13, 1474; doi:10.3390/ma13061474 www.mdpi.com/journal/materials
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