Abstract
State-of-the-art automotive fuel cells that operate at about 80 °C require large radiators and air intakes to avoid overheating. High-temperature fuel cells that operate above 100 °C under anhydrous conditions provide an ideal solution for heat rejection in heavy-duty vehicle applications. Here we report protonated phosphonic acid electrodes that remarkably improve the performance of high-temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells. The protonated phosphonic acids comprise tetrafluorostyrene-phosphonic acid and perfluorosulfonic acid polymers, where a perfluorosulfonic acid proton is transferred to the phosphonic acid to enhance the anhydrous proton conduction of fuel cell electrodes. By using this material in fuel cell electrodes, we obtained a fuel cell exhibiting a rated power density of 780 mW cm–2 at 160 °C, with minimal degradation during 2,500 h of operation and 700 thermal cycles from 40 to 160 °C under load.
Highlights
Version of Record: A version of this preprint was published at Nature Energy on January 31st, 2022
The protonated phosphonic acids are comprised of tetrafluorostyrene phosphonic acid and perfluorosulfonic acid polymers in which a proton of the perfluorosulfonic acid is transferred to the phosphonic acid to enhance the anhydrous proton conduction of fuel cell electrodes
One of the most significant technical challenges of heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs) fuel cells is the issue of heat rejection as the average operating temperature of HDV fuel cells can be 5 – 15 °C higher than light-duty vehicle fuel cells[5]
Summary
Version of Record: A version of this preprint was published at Nature Energy on January 31st, 2022. We designed protonated phosphonic acid electrodes that enable remarkable rated power density and are suitable for HDV fuel cells. Protonated phosphonic acid ionomer for ion-pair HT-PEMFCs
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