Fuel Cell Research Uses Alternative Approach

Sep 20, 2006 11:04 AM
By Mark Valentine, Technical Editor, Power Electronics Technology

Research being conducted by Dr. Carson Meredith, Associate Professor at Georgia Tech’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, will directly contribute to the development of low-cost, reliable polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells. While PEM fuel cells have many potential benefits, their high cost and limited durability are slowing the development of potential applications. The most significant application will be serving as the power plant for electric drive trains in hydrogen-powered vehicles.

The basic structure of a fuel cell is an assembly of layers comprised of an electrode, a gas diffusion layer, a catalyst layer, and then the polymer-electrolyte membrane (PEM), followed by the reverse sequence of the same components: catalyst layer, gas-diffusion layer and electrode. At present, Nafion supplied by Du Pont is the most commonly used material for the membrane. The focus of Dr. Meredith’s research is to find suitable lower-cost alternatives for this part of the fuel cell.

According to Dr. Meredith, a recently developed method of high-throughput screening, which was inspired by methods pioneered by the pharmaceutical industry, is vital to this research. The method allows multiple membrane compositions to be evaluated in a single pass. In this method, various PEM compositions are precisely formed as a gradient on a single continuous membrane. The resulting collection of membrane chemistries is called a Library.

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