Editors’ Choice—Can Hydrocarbon-Based MEAs Close the Performance Gap to State-of-the-Art Perfluorosulfonic Acid-Based MEAs for PEM Fuel Cells?
Numerous hydrocarbon (HC)-based ionomers have been investigated as fluorine-free alternatives to the well-established perfluorosulfonic acid (PFSA)-based ionomers for proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells. While PFSA-based MEAs can be prepared by hot-pressing, this is generally not possible for...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
IOP Publishing
2025-01-01
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| Series: | ECS Advances |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1149/2754-2734/adf34c |
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| Summary: | Numerous hydrocarbon (HC)-based ionomers have been investigated as fluorine-free alternatives to the well-established perfluorosulfonic acid (PFSA)-based ionomers for proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells. While PFSA-based MEAs can be prepared by hot-pressing, this is generally not possible for HC-based MEAs, due to their different physico-chemical properties. However, in this work, we introduce a wet hot-pressing method that yields high-performance HC-based MEAs, demonstrated by a systematic comparison of various MEA configurations with electrodes and/or the membrane based on either PFSA or HC ionomers. These MEAs exhibit oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activities that are essentially identical for cathodes prepared with either HC or PFSA ionomers, contrary to the frequently observed inferior ORR activity for the former, ascribed to catalyst poisoning. Furthermore, the differential-flow H _2 /air performance at 80 °C, 170 kPa _abs , and 2.5 A cm ^−2 of optimized all-HC-based MEAs coincides within ∼15 mV with that of all-PFSA-based MEAs, both at 70 and 90% relative humidity ( RH ). At these conditions, the current density of the all-HC-based MEAs at 0.6 V is ∼2.4 A cm ^−2 (90% RH ) and ∼2.1 A cm ^−2 (70% RH ), at anode/cathode loadings of ∼0.1/0.4 mg _Pt cm ^−2 . |
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| ISSN: | 2754-2734 |