First- principles modeling is used to predict hydrogen permeability through Palladium (Pd)-rich binary alloy membranes as a function of temperature and H2 pressure. We introduce a simplified model that incorporates only a few factors and yields quantitative prediction. This model is used to predict hydrogen permeability in a wide range of binary alloy membranes and to find promising alloys that have high hydrogen permeability. We show how our efficient Density Functional Theory (DFT)-based model predicts the chemical stability and proton conductivity of doped barium zirconate (BaZrO3), barium stannate (BaSnO3), and barium hafnate (BaHfO3). Our data is also used to explore the physical origins of the trends in chemical stability and proton conductivity among different dopants. We also study potassium tantalate (KTaO3), which is a prototype perovskite, to examine the characteristics of undoped perovskites. Specifically, we study the impacts of isotope effects, tunneling effects, and native point defects on proton mobility in KTaO3. It is important to find and develop solid-state Li-ion electrolyte materials that are chemically stable and have high ionic conductivities for high performance Li-ion batteries. We show how we predict the chemical stability of Li7La3Zr2O12, Li7La3Sn2O12, and Li7La3Hf2O12 with respect to carbonate and hydroxide formation reactions.

Dealloying refers to the partial, selective dissolution of the less noble component(s) of a binary or ternary alloy precursor, resulting in a noble-rich, porous structure that has high surface area. Such surface structure is beneficial for fuel cells (FC) because FC uses platinum (Pt), a scarce metal, to catalyze the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) at the cathode surface. In order to characterize the benefit of the dealloying process in FC ORR catalysts with the rotating disk electrode (RDE) technique, a high surface area catalyst support, namely 3M Co’s nanostructured thin film (NSTF), was incorporated into the RDE measurements. NSTF-coated glassy carbon (GC) disks were used in RDE experiments on a Pt/Pt1-xIrx (0.05 < x < 0.3) composition spread. ORR measurements using NSTF-coated GC disks measure the catalytic properties with the same morphology, composition and surface structure as would be found in a fuel cell. A series of Pt1-xCox and Pt1-xNix (0.5 < x < 0.8) dealloy catalyst precursor films were tested using NSTF-coated GC disks in RDE studies. The value of x in Pt1-xMx (M = Ni, Co) was selected to be high in order to examine the dealloying process. The catalyst films were examined by a RDE test protocol that tracked the surface enhancement factor (SEF) and ORR current densities over a large number of test cycles. The aim was to measure the catalytic performance of the Pt-M materials as dealloying took place. The SEF of the PtCo and PtNi materials increased rapidly at the beginning and reached a plateau as high as 50 cm2/cm2 while the specific ORR activities increased as the initial M content in the catalyst precursor increased. The impact of the dealloying process on morphology was examined by completely dealloying a Pt3Ni7 precursor, deposited on mirror-polished GC disks, at a constant potential. As the dealloying process continued, the SEF of the material increased from about 1 cm2/cm2 to > 30 cm2/cm2 and resulted in the formation of whisker-like structures.

Importance of clean, sustainable and renewable energy sources are increasing gradually because of either being environmental friendly or being alternative for fossil fuels. Hydrogen energy system will let the utilization of alternative energy sources. Fuel cells are the most suitable energy conversion devices while passing through the hydrogen economy. The cost of the fuel cell systems need to be reduced in order to achieve commercialization of these systems. One of the most important cost items is platinum which is used as catalyst both in anode and cathode sides of the proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells. Not only is the cost of the platinum, but also the limited reservoir of the platinum is a handicap. Therefore, the utilization of the cheap replacements of platinum catalysts will accelerate the process of commercialization. Because of their highly conjugated structure and high chemical stability metalo phthalocyanines have been encouraging electrocatalytic activity for oxygen reduction. Therefore, electrocatalytic activity for oxygen reduction in fuel cells was studied with some metalo phthalocyanines and some positive effects have been observed. In this study, phthalocyanines of cobalt, iron and nickel were synthesized via phthalic anhydride-urea method and characterized by IR Spectrophotometry, X-Ray Diffractometry and Thermal Gravimetry (TGA). Catalyst materials were prepared by impregnation method such that they contain either 4% cobalt, 4% or 10% iron or 4% nickel phthalocyanines on carbon black (Vulcan XC72) structure. Impregnated catalysts were pyrolyzed at 600oC or 1000oC and cathode electrodes were prepared by these catalysts as well as unpyrolyzed ones by spraying technique. The impregnated catalysts were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and pore structures were analyzed by surface area analyzer (by BET and BJH techniques). All of the anode electrodes were prepared by using 20% Pt containing commercial catalyst by the same technique applied for cathode electrodes. A membrane electrode assembly was also prepared by 20% Pt containing commercial catalyst on the cathode electrode. Performance characteristics of the manufactured membrane electrode assemblies were determined by means of a test station, built in Middle East Technical University Chemical Engineering Department, having a 5 cm2 test cell. The highest performance observed with the commercial membrane electrode assembly was 0.40W/cm2 at 0.5 V. Whereas, the power density obtained from the MEA manufactured at the laboratory having 0.4 mg Pt/cm2 loading both on the anode and cathode was 0.18 W/cm2 at 0.5 V. For the phthalocyanine cathodic MEAs, the highest power reached was 0.04W/cm2 which was obtained from the MEA having a loading of 0.28mg Co/cm2 prepared by using the CoPc/C catalyst pyrolyzed at 1000 oC.

Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) have been looked as potential alternative energy conversion devices to conventional energy conversion systems such as combustion engines. Proton conducting membranes (PEMs) are one critical component of PEMFCs. The development of novel electrolyte membranes with dense structure, good mechanical flexibility, and high proton conductivity, but with little or no dependence on humidity at temperatures above 100¡ãC remains an important challenge to the realization of practical PEM fuel cells. In this thesis, to solve the technical difficulties existing in current high temperature PEM systems based on phosphoric acid and imidazole, a new type of proton conducting species 1H-1,2,3-triazole has been explored, and proved to have high proton conductivity and also enough electrochemical stability for fuel cell applications. In further experiments, effective methods have been developed to synthesize triazole derivatives and polymers. The properties of the synthesized polymers have studied and reported in this thesis. Preliminary computational simulations have also been performed to study the proton conducting mechanism to provide intrinsic information of the proton conducting process in 1H-1,2,3-triazole. In the final part, research works on other proton conducting species including H3PO4 and other heterocycles have been reported.

An important challenge for PEMFC is stability and durability of the membrane separator. In this dissertation, we applied both experimental and modeling methods to investigate the chemical durability of PFSA membranes for fuel-cell applications. Degradation data were collected after Fenton's tests and the membrane samples were analyzed by XPS after Fenton's test; FTIR was also invoked to validate the XPS results. The effects of Fe2+ concentration and temperature on membrane degradation were discussed. The experimental results provide evidence of chemical attack of the CF2 backbone. Since the level of H2O2 was found to be key to membrane degradation, we designed a novel spectrophotometric method to quantitatively determine H2O2 concentration in a fuel cell by using a multilayer MEA. In addition, a model for H2O2 formation, transport, and reaction in PEMFCs is established for the first time to validate experimental data and study formation mechanism. The humidity effect on membrane degradation was studied by collecting vent water during the tests. The membrane conductivities and mechanical properties were measured by ex-situ high-throughput instruments. FTIR was applied to study both the formation of new groups and the relative abundance of existing groups in the degraded membrane. The thermal stability of degraded membranes was determined by TGA. The cross section of a degraded MEA sample was imaged with SEM to investigate the mechanical structure change. The effect of temperature on membrane degradation was also investigated. XPS spectra were collected from both anode and cathode sides of fuel-cell membrane to compare the effect of temperature on each side. Atomic analysis was performed to study the impact of temperature on both backbone decomposition and side group degradation. A multilayer MEA was used to study the effects of location and thickness on membrane degradation. An improved kinetic model of membrane degradation was built to simulate the experimental data. Finally, an attempt to mitigate membrane degradation by using peroxide decomposition reagent was performed. OCV curves were recorded during two fuel-cell durability tests with and without the addition of this additive. Both FER and TER were compared. Recommendations for the improvement of peroxide decomposition additive were suggested.

Durability of carbon-supported platinum nanoparticle is one of the limiting factors for PEM fuel cell commercial applications. In our research work, we applied both experimental and mathematical simulative tools to study the mechanisms of Pt/C catalyst degradation. An accelerated catalyst degradation protocol by cycling the cathode potential in a square-wave profile was applied to study the losses of cell performances, catalyst ORR activity, and Pt active surface areas. Post-mortem analyses of cathode Pt particle size by X-ray diffraction and platinum distributions in CCMs by SEM/EDS were also conducted. Increased cell temperature and relative humidity was found to accelerate the cathode catalyst degradation. High membrane water contents or abundant water/ionic channels within the polymer electrolyte were believed to accelerate Pt ion transport and cathode degradation. After degradation tests, significant amount of Pt loss into the membrane forming a Pt "band" was observed through cathode platinum dissolution and chemical reduction of soluble Pt ions by permeated hydrogen from the anode. Platinum deposition was confirmed at a location where the permeated hydrogen and oxygen had the complete catalytic combustion over the deposited Pt clusters/particles as the catalyst. A cathode degradation model was built including the processes of platinum oxidation, dissolution/replating, diffusion of Pt ions and Pt band formation in electrolyte. A simplified bi-modal particle size distribution was applied with equal numbers of small and large type particles uniformly distributed in the cathode initially. Processes of Pt mass exchange between two types of particles were demonstrated to cause the overall particle growth. This was due to the particle size effect that platinum dissolution from the small type particles and replating of Pt ions onto the large particles was favored. Parametric study found the increased upper cycling potential was the dominated factor to accelerate the catalyst degradation. Also high frequency of potential cycle and low surface oxide coverage accelerated the degradation rate. Pt dissolution and oxidation processes in perchloric acid were preliminary investigated, and both chemical and electrochemical processes of oxidation and dissolution were believed to be involved under closed-circuit fuel cell conditions with oxygen presence at cathode.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008.

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Les piles à combustibles sont une alternative à l’utilisation de ressources fossiles. Cependant, l’énergie qu’elles produisent reste chère et les procédés de fabrication actuels ne sont pas adaptés à des productions à grande échelle. Une piles de type PEMFC (Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell) essont un système constitué de cinq couches dans lequel la membrane et les deux couches de diffusion peuvent être considértestées comme support d’impression et les deux couches actives peuvent être imprimées par des procédés continus.Ce travail démontrea la pertinence du procédé d’impression appelé flexographiquee dans la fabrication de composants de PEMFC. La flexographieCe procédé offre permet de produire de grandes surfaces de production avec peu de perte de matière fonctionnelle. Malgré la faible imprimabilité des supports choisis, elle permit la fabrication des couches actives aux performances similaires à celles fabriquéesites par procédés conventionnels ont pu être réalisées grâce à la flexogaphie. / In a context of fossil fuel shortage and hydrocarbon emission reduction, fuel cells are a promising solution for energy production. However, the cost of the energy they produce remains too expensive to be competitive and the conventional manufacturing processes used limit the scaling up of the production. The core of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFCs) is a stack composed of five constituents, in which the proton exchange membrane and the two gas diffusion layers have potential for being can be considered as used a a printing substrates, and the two catalyst layers can be printed by continuous printing processes.This work demonstrated the relevance of the printing process called flexography for manufacturing fuel cell components. It offers allows larger production with low waste of expensive elements. Despite of the poor printability of the both chosen substrates, the achieved catalyst layers printed by flexography reached similar electrochemical properties than those made by conventional processes.

Magister Scientiae - MSc (Chemistry) / The anode catalyst is one of the important parts of the direct alcohol fuel cell (DAFC); it is responsible for the alcohol oxidation reaction (AOR) takes place at the anode side. Pd has been reported to have good alcohol oxidation reactions and good stability in alkaline solution. Better stability and activity has been reported for Pd alloyed catalysts when compared to Pd. Choosing a suitable alcohol also has an effect on the activity and stability of the catalyst. This study investigates the best catalyst with better AOR and the best stability and also looks at the better alcohol to use between glycerol and ethanol for the five in-house catalysts (20% Pd, PdNi, PdNiO, PdMn3O4 and PdMn3O4NiO on multi walled carbon nanotubes) using cyclic voltammetry (CV), linear sweep voltammetry (LSV), electrochemical impedance spectrometry (EIS) and chronoamperometry. HR-TEM and XRD techniques were used to determine the particle size and average particle size, respectively while EDS used to determine elemental composition and ICP was used to determine catalyst loading. It was observed from LSV that PdNiO was the most active catalyst for both ethanol and glycerol oxidation, and it was the most stable in ethanol while PdMn3O4 proved to be the most stable catalyst in glycerol observed using chronoamperometry. The best alcohol in this study was reported to be glycerol having given the highest current densities for all the inhouse catalysts compared to ethanol observed using LSV. From XRD and HR-TEM studies, particle sizes were in the range of 0.97 and 2.69 nm for XRD 3.44 and 7.20 nm for HR-TEM with a little agglomeration for PdMn3O4 and PdMn3O4NiO.