Fuel Cells: Performance and Durability

A special issue of Electrochem (ISSN 2673-3293).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2024 | Viewed by 5441

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
New Technologies - Research Centre, University of West Bohemia, 30 100 Plzeň, Czech Republic
Interests: PEM fuel cell; inverse gas chromatography; air pollution

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
New Technologies - Research Centre, University of West Bohemia, 30 100 Plzeň, Czech Republic
Interests: fuel cell; polymer electrolytes

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It is our pleasure to invite you to submit original research and review papers to this Special Issue on “Fuel Cells: Performance and Durability”. We strongly encourage you to participate in this Special Issue of Electrochem MDPI.

Fuel cells are emerging as one of the most promising technologies for clean energy generation. Fuel cells are electrochemical devices converting chemical energy to electrical and thermal energy. Depending on the type of electrolyte used, fuel cells are classified as solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), photocatalytic fuel cells (PFCs), proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), molten carbonate fuel cells (MCFCs), alkaline membrane fuel cells (AMFCs), phosphoric acid fuel cells (PAFCs), direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs), direct ethanol fuel cells (DEFCs), biofuel cells (BFCs), and microfluidic fuel cells (MFCs). Moreover, reversible fuel cells operating as electrolyzers or fuel cells have also been developed.

Hydrogen is known as the common fuel for fuel cells. However, hydrogen is not naturally available and must be produced by decomposing hydrogenated materials such as hydrocarbons. This material decomposition that leads to hydrogen production can either happen inside or outside of the fuel cells.

This Special Issue covers current trends and future developments in fuel cell technology. Theoretical, experimental, and analytical original research, as well as reviews articles, are welcome.

Dr. Fatemeh Gholami
Dr. Martin Tomas
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • fuel cell
  • performance
  • durability
  • catalyst
  • energy conversion
  • hydrogen
  • electrochemical

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 5131 KiB  
Article
Time-Domain Self-Clustering-Based Diagnosis Applied on Open Cathode Fuel Cell
by Etienne Dijoux, Cédric Damour, Frédéric Alicalapa, Alexandre Aubier and Michel Benne
Electrochem 2024, 5(2), 162-177; https://doi.org/10.3390/electrochem5020011 - 9 May 2024
Viewed by 908
Abstract
The ability of a diagnosis tool to observe an abnormal state of a system remains a major issue for health monitoring. For that purpose, several diagnosis tools have been proposed in the literature. Most of them are developed for specific system characterization, and [...] Read more.
The ability of a diagnosis tool to observe an abnormal state of a system remains a major issue for health monitoring. For that purpose, several diagnosis tools have been proposed in the literature. Most of them are developed for specific system characterization, and the genericity of the approaches is not considered. Indeed, most approaches proposed in the literature are based on an expert offline consideration that makes it hard to apply the strategy to other systems. It is therefore important to develop a diagnostic tool that takes as little as possible expert knowledge to reduce the dependency between the tool and the system. This paper, therefore, focuses on the application of a generic diagnosis tool on an open cathode fuel cell. The goal is to feed the diagnosis algorithm with a voltage measurement and let it proceed to a self-clustering of the signal components. Each cluster’s interpretation remains to be established by the expert point of view that is then involved downstream of the diagnosis tool. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fuel Cells: Performance and Durability)
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20 pages, 5737 KiB  
Article
Morphological Characteristics of Catalyst Layer Defects in Catalyst-Coated Membranes in PEM Fuel Cells
by Muneendra Prasad Arcot, Magnus Cronin, Michael Fowler and Mark Pritzker
Electrochem 2023, 4(1), 1-20; https://doi.org/10.3390/electrochem4010001 - 11 Jan 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3620
Abstract
Catalyst layer defects and irregularities in catalyst-coated membrane (CCM) electrodes affect the lifetime of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) during their operation. Thus, catalyst layer defects are important concerns for fuel cell manufacturers and prompt the development of quality control systems with [...] Read more.
Catalyst layer defects and irregularities in catalyst-coated membrane (CCM) electrodes affect the lifetime of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) during their operation. Thus, catalyst layer defects are important concerns for fuel cell manufacturers and prompt the development of quality control systems with the aim of fabricating defect-free electrodes. Consequently, the objective of this study is to gain a fundamental understanding of the morphological changes of real catalyst layer defects that have developed during CCM production. In this paper, missing catalyst layer defects (MCLD) formed during the decal transfer process are investigated through a nondestructive method using reflected light microscopy. The geometric features of the defects are quantified, and their growth is measured at regular time intervals from beginning-of-life (BOL) to end-of-life (EOL) until the OCV has dropped by 20% of its initial value as per a DOE-designed protocol. Overall, two types of degradation are observed: surface degradation caused by catalyst erosion and crack degradation caused by membrane mechanical deformation. Furthermore, catalyst layer defects formed during the decal transfer process were found to exhibit a higher growth rate at middle-of-life (MOL-1) and stabilize by EOL. This type of study will provide manufacturers with baseline information to allow them to select and reject CCMs, ultimately increasing the lifetime of fuel cell stacks. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fuel Cells: Performance and Durability)
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