https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1131&context=usdoepub

A review of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells: Technology, applications,and needs on fundamental research

Although current high-energy-density lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have taken over the commercial rechargeable battery market, increasing concerns about limited lithium resources, high cost, and insecurity of organic electrolyte scale-up limit their further development. Rechargeable aqueous zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs), an alternative battery chemistry, have paved the way not only for realizing environmentally benign and safe energy storage devices but also for reducing the manufacturing costs of next-generation batteries. This Review underscores recent advances in aqueous ZIBs; these include the design of a highly reversible Zn anode, optimization of the electrolyte, and a wide range of cathode materials and their energy storage mechanisms. We also present recent advanced techniques that aim at overcoming the current issues in aqueous ZIB systems. This Review on the future perspectives and research directions will provide a guide for future aqueous ZIB study.

Recent Advances in Aqueous Zinc-Ion Batteries

Power consumption is forecast by the International Technology Roadmap of Semiconductors (ITRS) to pose long-term technical challenges for the semiconductor industry. The purpose of this paper is threefold: (1) to provide an overview of strategies for powering MEMS via non-regenerative and regenerative power supplies; (2) to review the fundamentals of piezoelectric energy harvesting, along with recent advancements, and (3) to discuss future trends and applications for piezoelectric energy harvesting technology. The paper concludes with a discussion of research needs that are critical for the enhancement of piezoelectric energy harvesting devices.

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Powering MEMS portable devices—a review of non-regenerative and regenerative power supply systems with special emphasis on piezoelectric energy harvesting systems

With a worldwide trend towards the efficient use of renewable energies and the rapid expansion of the electric vehicle market, the importance of rechargeable battery technologies, particularly lithium-ion batteries, has steadily increased. In the past few years, a major breakthrough in electrolyte materials was achieved by simply increasing the salt concentration in suitable salt–solvent combinations, offering technical superiority in numerous figures of merit over alternative materials. This long-awaited, extremely simple yet effective strategy can overcome most of the remaining hurdles limiting the present lithium-ion batteries without sacrificing manufacturing efficiency, and hence its impact is now widely felt in the scientific community, with serious potential for industrial development. This Review aims to provide timely and objective information that will be valuable for designing better realistic batteries, including a multi-angle analysis of their advantages and disadvantages together with future perspectives. Emphasis is placed on the pathways to address the remaining technical and scientific issues rather than re-highlighting the many technical advantages. New electrolyte materials can offer breakthroughs in the development of next-generation batteries. Here Atsuo Yamada and colleagues review the progress made and the road ahead for salt-concentrated electrolytes, an emerging and promising electrolyte candidate.

Advances and issues in developing salt-concentrated battery electrolytes

The push towards miniaturized electronics calls for the development of miniaturized energy-storage components that can enable sustained, autonomous operation of electronic devices for applications such as wearable gadgets and wireless sensor networks. Microsupercapacitors have been targeted as a viable route for this purpose, because, though storing less energy than microbatteries, they can be charged and discharged much more rapidly and have an almost unlimited lifetime. In this Review, we discuss the progress and the prospects of integrated miniaturized supercapacitors. In particular, we discuss their power performances and emphasize the need of a three-dimensional design to boost their energy-storage capacity. This is obtainable, for example, through self-supported nanostructured electrodes. We also critically evaluate the performance metrics currently used in the literature to characterize microsupercapacitors and offer general guidelines to benchmark performances towards prospective applications.

Microsupercapacitors as miniaturized energy-storage components for on-chip electronics

This paper deals with the control of a miniaturized fuel cell system. A single air blower is used to control both heat and water management of the fuel cell. As the number of manipulated variables is smaller than the number of control variables, classical control algorithms are not applicable. To find a suitable controller, a system model is developed that shows the qualitatively same behavior as the experimental setup. The dynamic behavior of the model and the influence of the blower are studied by phase portraits. A control algorithm is then conceived by qualitative analysis of the phase portraits and tested in simulations.

/pdf/temperature-and-humidity-control-of-a-micro-pem-fuel-cell-3zpr5krtiw.pdf

Temperature and Humidity Control of a Micro PEM Fuel Cell Stack

Energy autonomous sensor systems: State and perspectives of a ubiquitous sensor technology

A PEM micro fuel cell system is described which is based on self-breathing PEM micro fuel cells in the power range between 1 mW and 1W. Hydrogen is supplied with on-demand hydrogen production with help of a galvanic cell, that produces hydrogen when Zn reacts with water. The system can be used as a battery replacement for low power applications and has the potential to improve the run time of autonomous systems. The efficiency has been investigated as function of fuel cell construction and tested for several load profiles.

Optimization of efficiency and energy density of passive micro fuel cells and galvanic hydrogen generators

Planares Brennstoffzellen-System mit mindestens zwei Brennstoffzellen, welche uber sich horizontal uber­lappende Verschaltungsfahnen (8 und 8', 18 und 18') und/oder Leiterbahnen (40) elektrisch seriell verschal­tet sind und welches eine Polymer-Elektrolyt-Membran (3) aufweist, wobei der Strompfad um die Polymer-Elek­trolyt-Membran herumgefuhrt ist, wobei das Brennstoffzellen-System in Leiterplattentechnik als Ver­bund zweier Leiterplatten ausgefuhrt ist und die Stromkollektoren und Verschaltungsfahnen als Leiter­bahnen dieser Leiterplatten ausgefuhrt sind.

Brennstoffzellen-system in leiterplattenbauweise

Recent years have seen a strong focus of the IC research community towards increasing the energy efficiency of electronic systems. This continued effort has involved all kinds of electronic functions: DSPs (reaching the 10µW/MMAC according Gene's law), data converters (the FOM of recent ADCs is better than 50fJ/conversion), radios (reaching the level of 3nJ per received-transmitted bit).

Robert Hahn

Papers

Temperature and Humidity Control of a Micro PEM Fuel Cell Stack

Energy autonomous sensor systems: State and perspectives of a ubiquitous sensor technology

Optimization of efficiency and energy density of passive micro fuel cells and galvanic hydrogen generators

Brennstoffzellen-system in leiterplattenbauweise

Energy autonomous sensor systems: State and perspectives of a ubiquitous sensor technology