Rod Borup is a Team Leader in the fuel cell program at Los Alamos National Lab in Los Alamos, New Mexico. He received his B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Iowa in 1988 and his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 1993. He has worked on fuel cell technology since 1994, working in the areas of hydrogen production and PEM fuel cell stack components. He has been awarded 12 U.S. patents, authored over 40 papers related to fuel cell technology, and presented over 50 oral papers at national meetings. His current main research area is related to water transport in PEM fuel cells and PEM fuel cell durability. Recently, he was awarded the 2005 DOE Hydrogen Program R&D Award for the most significant R&D contribution of the year for his team's work in fuel cell durability and was the Principal Investigator for the 2004 Fuel Cell Seminar (San Antonio, TX, USA) Best Poster Award. Jeremy Meyers is an Assistant Professor of materials science and engineering and mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, where his research focuses on the development of electrochemical energy systems and materials. Prior to joining the faculty at Texas, Jeremy workedmore » as manager of the advanced transportation technology group at UTC Power, where he was responsible for developing new system designs and components for automotive PEM fuel cell power plants. While at UTC Power, Jeremy led several customer development projects and a DOE-sponsored investigation into novel catalysts and membranes for PEM fuel cells. Jeremy has coauthored several papers on key mechanisms of fuel cell degradation and is a co-inventor of several patents. In 2006, Jeremy and several colleagues received the George Mead Medal, UTC's highest award for engineering achievement, and he served as the co-chair of the Gordon Research Conference on fuel cells. Jeremy received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and holds a Bachelor's Degree in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University. Bryan Pivovar received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin in 1994. He completed his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Minnesota in 2000 under the direction of Profs. Ed Cussler and Bill Smyrl, studying transport properties in fuel cell electrolytes. He continued working in the area of polymer electrolyte fuel cells at Los Alamos National Laboratory as a post-doc (2000-2001), as a technical staff member (2001-2005), and in his current position as a team leader (2005-present). In this time, Bryan's research has expanded to include further aspects of fuel cell operation, including electrodes, subfreezing effects, alternative polymers, hydroxide conductors, fuel cell interfaces, impurities, water transport, and high-temperature membranes. Bryan has served at various levels in national and international conferences and workshops, including organizing a DOE sponsored workshop on freezing effects in fuel cells and an ARO sponsored workshop on alkaline membrane fuel cells, and he was co-chair of the 2007 Gordon Research Conference on Fuel Cells. Minoru Inaba is a Professor at the Department of Molecular Science and Technology, Faculty of Engineering, Doshisha University, Japan. He received his B.Sc. from the Faculty of Engineering, Kyoto University, in 1984 and his M.Sc. in 1986 and his Dr. Eng. in 1995 from the Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University. He has worked on electrochemical energy conversion systems including fuel cells and lithium-ion batteries at Kyoto University (1992-2002) and at Doshisha University (2002-present). His primary research interest is the durability of polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs), in particular, membrane degradation, and he has been involved in NEDO R&D research projects on PEFC durability since 2001. He has authored over 140 technical papers and 30 review articles. Kenichiro Ota is a Professor of the Chemical Energy Laboratory at the Graduate School of Engineering, Yokohama National University, Japan. He received his B.S.E. in Applied Chemistry from the University of Tokyo in 1968 and his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo in 1973. He has worked on hydrogen energy and fuel cells since 1974, working on materials science for fuel cells and water electrolysis. He has published more than 150 original papers, 70 review papers, and 50 scientific books. He is now the president of the Hydrogen Energy Systems Society of Japan, the chairman of the Fuel Cell Research Group of the Electrochemical Society of Japan, and the chairman of the National Committee for the Standardization of the Stationary Fuel Cells. ABSTRACT TRUNCATED« less

Scientific aspects of polymer electrolyte fuel cell durability and degradation.

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

In this comprehensive review, recent progress and developments on perfluorinated sulfonic-acid (PFSA) membranes have been summarized on many key topics. Although quite well investigated for decades, PFSA ionomers’ complex behavior, along with their key role in many emerging technologies, have presented significant scientific challenges but also helped create a unique cross-disciplinary research field to overcome such challenges. Research and progress on PFSAs, especially when considered with their applications, are at the forefront of bridging electrochemistry and polymer (physics), which have also opened up development of state-of-the-art in situ characterization techniques as well as multiphysics computation models. Topics reviewed stem from correlating the various physical (e.g., mechanical) and transport properties with morphology and structure across time and length scales. In addition, topics of recent interest such as structure/transport correlations and modeling, composite PFSA membranes, degradat...

New Insights into Perfluorinated Sulfonic-Acid Ionomers

Formic acid (HCOOH) has great potential as an in situ source of hydrogen for fuel cells, because it offers high energy density, is non-toxic and can be safely handled in aqueous solution. So far, there has been a lack of solid catalysts that are sufficiently active and/or selective for hydrogen production from formic acid at room temperature. Here, we report that Ag nanoparticles coated with a thin layer of Pd atoms can significantly enhance the production of H₂ from formic acid at ambient temperature. Atom probe tomography confirmed that the nanoparticles have a core-shell configuration, with the shell containing between 1 and 10 layers of Pd atoms. The Pd shell contains terrace sites and is electronically promoted by the Ag core, leading to significantly enhanced catalytic properties. Our nanocatalysts could be used in the development of micro polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells for portable devices and could also be applied in the promotion of other catalytic reactions under mild conditions.

Hydrogen production from formic acid decomposition at room temperature using a Ag-Pd core-shell nanocatalyst

A review of PEM hydrogen fuel cell contamination: Impacts, mechanisms, and mitigation

We describe a polymer electrolyte fuel cell model emphasizing operation on hydrocarbon reformate, i.e., the anode feed stream consists of dry H 2 concentrations as low as 40%, inlet CO levels of 10-100 ppm, and hydrogen fuel utilization as high as 90%. Refinements of interfacial kinetics equations used in our previous work on CO effects in H 2 anodes have yielded a better quantitative fit to the measured dependence of voltage loss on inlet CO level [in Electrode Materials and Processes for Energy Conversion and Storage, J. McBreen, S. Mukerjee, and S. Srinivasan, Editors, PV 97-13, pp. 15-24, The Electrochemical Society Proceedings Series, Pennington, NJ (1997)]. We calculate anode potential losses by coupling such interfacial kinetic processes to reactant diffusion limitations and ionic resistance in the catalyst layer, and by accounting for the drop in local hydrogen concentration along the flow channel due to significant fuel utilization. As a result of internal readjustment of cell overpotentials when hydrogen concentration drops along the flow channel, we show that loss of current, or power, under the realistic condition of constant cell voltage is smaller than loss of current at constant anode potential. We show that voltage losses associated with CO poisoning are significantly amplified with diluted hydrogen feed streams and particularly so under high fuel utilization. We make projections on improvements required, qualitative and quantitative, in the physical parameters of the anode catalyst surface chemistry to significantly improve CO tolerance.

Model for Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cell Operation on Reformate Feed: Effects of CO, H;2 Dilution, and High Fuel Utilization

Influence of the microporous layer on carbon corrosion in the catalyst layer of a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell

In this contribution, the effects of sodium chloride in the cathode side air stream of a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell were studied, since it is present in the atmosphere in many fuel cell operating environments, especially at coastal regions and on roads where NaCl is used as a deicer. The effect on PEMFC performance was investigated by injecting NaCl solution into the cathode side air stream of an operating fuel cell. The most significant effect of NaCl under test conditions is the replacement of H+ by Na+ in the ionomer, lowering performance by reducing proton conductivity. In addition, NaCl was found to absorb into the graphite components, making them a potential long-term NaCl source after the initial exposure. In contrast to expectations, chloride ions did not appear to effect performance of the cell and the overall magnitude of the effects due to NaCl introduction were smaller than expected.

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Tommy Rockward

Papers

Model for Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cell Operation on Reformate Feed: Effects of CO, H;2 Dilution, and High Fuel Utilization

Influence of the microporous layer on carbon corrosion in the catalyst layer of a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell

The effect of NaCl in the cathode air stream on PEMFC performance

The Impact of Hydrogen Fuel Contaminates on Long-Term PMFC Performance

Performance of PEM Fuel Cells at Sub-Freezing Temperatures