New Insights into High-Temperature Anion-Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells

Abstract

Until a few years ago, the operation of anion-exchange membrane (AEM) fuel cells (AEMFCs) at temperatures above 70 oC was a real challenge, mainly due to the temperature limitation of the AEMs. Recently, with the remarkable progress made in the development of stable AEMs, more and more AEMFC tests could be performed at higher cell temperatures, mainly at 70-85 oC. Very recently, very few studies even reported the operation of AEMFCs at 90-95 oC. In the past year, we presented the first results of what we call high-temperature AEMFCs (HT-AEMFCs) tested at cell temperatures above 100 oC. At these temperatures, we could obtain hydroxide conductivities close to 300 mS cm-1, the highest hydroxide conductivity ever measured for an AEM. The first HT-AEMFC results are very encouraging and represent a significant landmark for the research and development of fuel cell technology, opening a wide door for a new field of research - the HT-AEMFCs. At this initial stage, however, there are many open questions and unknowns, mainly regarding the stability of the polymeric materials under these high temperatures. In this talk, this topic will be discussed, and new exciting and surprising insights will be presented.References “A high-temperature anion-exchange membrane fuel cell”; John C. Douglin, John R. Varcoe, and Dario R. Dekel; J. Power Sources Advances 5, 100023, 2020.“Quantifying the critical effect of water diffusivity in anion exchange membranes for fuel cell applications”; Karam Yassin, Igal G. Rasin, Simon Brandon, and Dario R. Dekel; J. Membrane Sci. 608, 118206, 2020.“A High-Temperature Anion-Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell with a Critical Raw Material-free Nitrogen-doped Carbon Cathode”; John C. Douglin, Ramesh K. Singh, Saja Haj, Songlin Li, Jasper Biemolt, Ning Yan, John R. Varcoe, Gadi Rothenberg, and Dario R. Dekel; Chemical Engineering J. Adv. 8, 100153, 2021.“A surprising relation between operating temperature and stability of anion exchange membrane fuel cells”; Karam Yassin, Igal G. Rasin, Sapir Willdorf-Cohen, Charles E. Diesendruck, Simon Brandon, and Dario R. Dekel; J. Power Sources Adv. 11, 100066, 2021.“Magnetic-field-oriented mixed-valence-stabilized ferrocenium anion-exchange membrane”; Xin Liu, Na Xie, Jiandang Xue, Mengyuan Li, Chenyang Zheng, Junfeng Zhang, Yanzhou Qin, Yan Yin, Dario R. Dekel, Michael D. Guiver; Nature Energy, just accepted (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-022-00978-y) 2022.“Non-Monotonic Temperature Dependence of Hydroxide Ion Diffusion in Anion Exchange Membranes”; Tamar Zelovich, Leslie Vogt-Maranto, Cataldo Simari, Isabella Nicotera, Michael Hickner, Stephen J. Paddison, Chulsung Bae, Dario R. Dekel, and Mark E. Tuckerman; Chemistry Mater., Chem. Mater. 34, 5, 2133-2145, 2022.