Molecular Level Investigation of PBI Based High Temperature Fuel Cells

Abstract

High temperature operation of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) has many advantages such as reduce the complexity of water management, increase the tolerance of CO poisoning and enhanced electrode kinetics, etc. Traditional PEMFC (Nafion® based) is not suitable for high temperature operation because it requires water to sustain the proton conductivity. The content of water is very low at high temperature operation. Membrane material which is able to show good proton conductivity at low water content condition is required to perform the high temperature operation. Polybenzimidazoles (PBI) based membrane doping with acid is one of the materials that shows good performance at high temperature operation. This paper presents a molecular level simulation by molecular dynamics technique. The information obtained from the study is very helpful in understanding the fundamental knowledge of acid-doped PBI membrane.