IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/energy/v227y2021ics0360544221007088.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Carbon nanotube sheet as a microporous layer for proton exchange membrane fuel cells

Author

Listed:
  • Kim, Jaeyeon
  • Kim, Hyeok
  • Song, Hyeonjun
  • Kim, Dasol
  • Kim, Geon Hwi
  • Im, Dasom
  • Jeong, Youngjin
  • Park, Taehyun

Abstract

A multi-walled carbon nanotube (CNT) sheet was employed and investigated as a microporous layer (MPL) of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). The CNT sheet was synthesized via floating catalyst chemical vapor deposition method. The CNT sheet MPLs with the thickness of 15, 30, and 100 μm were prepared and compared with a commercial carbon-black MPL. As a result, it was found that the PEMFC with the 15-μm-thick CNT sheet MPL showed high electrochemical performance, and it outtopped the conventional PEMFC. The 15-μm-thick CNT sheet MPL increased the peak power density by 50.9% in air-supplied cathode and 20.9% in pure oxygen-supplied cathode compared to the conventional PEMFC. Through electrochemical impedance analyses, it was found that the CNT sheet MPL effectively decreased a charge transfer resistance, which is attributed to the improved reaction kinetics and mass transport through the MPL.

Suggested Citation

  • Kim, Jaeyeon & Kim, Hyeok & Song, Hyeonjun & Kim, Dasol & Kim, Geon Hwi & Im, Dasom & Jeong, Youngjin & Park, Taehyun, 2021. "Carbon nanotube sheet as a microporous layer for proton exchange membrane fuel cells," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:227:y:2021:i:c:s0360544221007088
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2021.120459
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544221007088
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.energy.2021.120459?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Deng, Huichao & Zhang, Yufeng & Zheng, Xue & Li, Yang & Zhang, Xuelin & Liu, Xiaowei, 2015. "A CNT (carbon nanotube) paper as cathode gas diffusion electrode for water management of passive μ-DMFC (micro-direct methanol fuel cell) with highly concentrated methanol," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 236-241.
    2. Blal, Mohamed & Benatiallah, Ali & NeÇaibia, Ammar & Lachtar, Salah & Sahouane, Nordine & Belasri, Ahmed, 2019. "Contribution and investigation to compare models parameters of (PEMFC), comprehensives review of fuel cell models and their degradation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 182-199.
    3. Huang, Yu-Xian & Cheng, Chin-Hsiang & Wang, Xiao-Dong & Jang, Jiin-Yuh, 2010. "Effects of porosity gradient in gas diffusion layers on performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cells," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 4786-4794.
    4. Yan, X.H. & Zhao, T.S. & An, L. & Zhao, G. & Zeng, L., 2015. "A crack-free and super-hydrophobic cathode micro-porous layer for direct methanol fuel cells," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 331-336.
    5. Ren, Peng & Pei, Pucheng & Li, Yuehua & Wu, Ziyao & Chen, Dongfang & Huang, Shangwei & Jia, Xiaoning, 2019. "Diagnosis of water failures in proton exchange membrane fuel cell with zero-phase ohmic resistance and fixed-low-frequency impedance," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(C), pages 785-792.
    6. Poornesh, K.K. & Cho, Chongdu & Kim, Do-Young & Tak, Yongsug, 2010. "Effect of gas-diffusion electrode material heterogeneity on the structural integrity of polymer electrolyte fuel cell," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 5241-5249.
    7. Xing, Lei & Shi, Weidong & Su, Huaneng & Xu, Qian & Das, Prodip K. & Mao, Baodong & Scott, Keith, 2019. "Membrane electrode assemblies for PEM fuel cells: A review of functional graded design and optimization," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 445-464.
    8. Park, Jaeman & Oh, Hwanyeong & Lee, Yoo Il & Min, Kyoungdoug & Lee, Eunsook & Jyoung, Jy-Young, 2016. "Effect of the pore size variation in the substrate of the gas diffusion layer on water management and fuel cell performance," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 200-212.
    9. Lin, Rui & Diao, Xiaoyu & Ma, Tiancai & Tang, Shenghao & Chen, Liang & Liu, Dengcheng, 2019. "Optimized microporous layer for improving polymer exchange membrane fuel cell performance using orthogonal test design," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 254(C).
    10. Arlt, Tobias & Klages, Merle & Messerschmidt, Matthias & Scholta, Joachim & Manke, Ingo, 2017. "Influence of artificially aged gas diffusion layers on the water management of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells analyzed with in-operando synchrotron imaging," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 502-511.
    11. Laoun, Brahim & Kasat, Harshal A. & Ahmad, Riaz & Kannan, Arunachala M., 2018. "Gas diffusion layer development using design of experiments for the optimization of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell performance," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 689-695.
    12. Gao, Y. & Sun, G.Q. & Wang, S.L. & Zhu, S., 2010. "Carbon nanotubes based gas diffusion layers in direct methanol fuel cells," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 1455-1459.
    13. Olabi, A.G. & Wilberforce, Tabbi & Abdelkareem, Mohammad Ali, 2021. "Fuel cell application in the automotive industry and future perspective," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Li Guan & Prabhuraj Balakrishnan & Huiyuan Liu & Weiqi Zhang & Yilin Deng & Huaneng Su & Lei Xing & Željko Penga & Qian Xu, 2022. "A Tortuosity Engineered Dual-Microporous Layer Electrode Including Graphene Aerogel Enabling Largely Improved Direct Methanol Fuel Cell Performance with High-Concentration Fuel," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(24), pages 1-14, December.
    2. Lee, Jiseung & Salihi, Hassan & Lee, Jaeseung & Ju, Hyunchul, 2022. "Impedance modeling for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells by combining the transient two-phase fuel cell and equivalent electric circuit models," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(PC).
    3. Gye-Eun Jang & Gu-Young Cho, 2022. "Effects of Ag Current Collecting Layer Fabricated by Sputter for 3D-Printed Polymer Bipolar Plate of Ultra-Light Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-9, March.
    4. Lin, Rui & Dong, Mengcheng & Lan, Shunbo & Lou, Mingyu, 2023. "Numerical simulation of liquid water transport in perforated cracks of microporous layer," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 262(PB).
    5. Lee, F.C. & Ismail, M.S. & Ingham, D.B. & Hughes, K.J. & Ma, L & Lyth, S.M. & Pourkashanian, M., 2022. "Alternative architectures and materials for PEMFC gas diffusion layers: A review and outlook," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    6. Guo, Lingyi & Chen, Li & Zhang, Ruiyuan & Peng, Ming & Tao, Wen-Quan, 2022. "Pore-scale simulation of two-phase flow and oxygen reactive transport in gas diffusion layer of proton exchange membrane fuel cells: Effects of nonuniform wettability and porosity," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 253(C).
    7. Kwon, Obeen & Kim, Jaeyeon & Choi, Heesoo & Cha, Hyeonjin & Shin, Myunggyu & Jeong, Youngjin & Park, Taehyun, 2022. "CNT sheet as a cathodic functional interlayer in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhang, Xiaoqing & Yang, Jiapei & Ma, Xiao & Zhuge, Weilin & Shuai, Shijin, 2022. "Modelling and analysis on effects of penetration of microporous layer into gas diffusion layer in PEM fuel cells: Focusing on mass transport," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 254(PA).
    2. Kwon, Obeen & Kim, Jaeyeon & Choi, Heesoo & Cha, Hyeonjin & Shin, Myunggyu & Jeong, Youngjin & Park, Taehyun, 2022. "CNT sheet as a cathodic functional interlayer in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    3. Abdelkareem, Mohammad Ali & Allagui, Anis & Sayed, Enas Taha & El Haj Assad, M. & Said, Zafar & Elsaid, Khaled, 2019. "Comparative analysis of liquid versus vapor-feed passive direct methanol fuel cells," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 563-584.
    4. Bai, Xingying & Luo, Lizhong & Huang, Bi & Jian, Qifei & Cheng, Zongyi, 2022. "Performance improvement of proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack by dual-path hydrogen supply," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    5. Yu, Rui Jiao & Guo, Hang & Ye, Fang & Chen, Hao, 2022. "Multi-parameter optimization of stepwise distribution of parameters of gas diffusion layer and catalyst layer for PEMFC peak power density," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 324(C).
    6. Liu, Huize & Hu, Zunyan & Li, Jianqiu & Xu, Liangfei & Shao, Yangbin & Ouyang, Minggao, 2023. "Investigation on the optimal GDL thickness design for PEMFCs considering channel/rib geometry matching and operating conditions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 282(C).
    7. Zhao, Lei & Yuan, Hao & Xie, Jiaping & Jiang, Shangfeng & Wei, Xuezhe & Tang, Wei & Ming, Pingwen & Dai, Haifeng, 2023. "Inconsistency evaluation of vehicle-oriented fuel cell stacks based on electrochemical impedance under dynamic operating conditions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    8. Ebrahimi, Sasan & Ghorbani, Babak & Vijayaraghavan, Krishna, 2017. "Optimization of catalyst distribution along PEMFC channel through a numerical two-phase model and genetic algorithm," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 846-854.
    9. Kim, Ah-Reum & Shin, Seungho & Um, Sukkee, 2016. "Multidisciplinary approaches to metallic bipolar plate design with bypass flow fields through deformable gas diffusion media of polymer electrolyte fuel cells," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 378-389.
    10. Lin, Rui & Wang, Hong & Zhu, Yu, 2021. "Optimizing the structural design of cathode catalyst layer for PEM fuel cells for improving mass-specific power density," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 221(C).
    11. Yang, Chii-Rong & Lu, Chang-Wei & Fu, Pin-Chi & Cheng, Chia & Chiou, Yuang-Cherng & Lee, Rong-Tsong & Tseng, Shih-Feng, 2020. "Performance evaluation of μDMFCs based on porous-silicon electrodes and methanol modification," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    12. Wang, Qing-Hui & Yang, Song & Zhou, Wei & Li, Jing-Rong & Xu, Zhi-Jia & Ke, Yu-Zhi & Yu, Wei & Hu, Guang-Hua, 2018. "Optimizing the porosity configuration of porous copper fiber sintered felt for methanol steam reforming micro-reactor based on flow distribution," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 243-261.
    13. Meng, Kai & Chen, Ben & Zhou, Haoran & Shen, Jun & Shen, Zuguo & Tu, Zhengkai, 2022. "Investigation on degradation mechanism of hydrogen–oxygen proton exchange membrane fuel cell under current cyclic loading," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 242(C).
    14. Rezk, Hegazy & Olabi, A.G. & Ferahtia, Seydali & Sayed, Enas Taha, 2022. "Accurate parameter estimation methodology applied to model proton exchange membrane fuel cell," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    15. Jiao, Daokuan & Jiao, Kui & Zhong, Shenghui & Du, Qing, 2022. "Investigations on heat and mass transfer in gas diffusion layers of PEMFC with a gas–liquid-solid coupled model," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 316(C).
    16. Yu, Yang & Chen, Sheng & Wu, Yuanhao, 2023. "Predicting gas diffusion layer flow information in proton exchange membrane fuel cells from cross-sectional data using deep learning methods," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 282(C).
    17. Li, Yi & Yuan, Fang & Weng, Rengang & Xi, Fang & Liu, Wei, 2021. "Variational-principle-optimized porosity distribution in gas diffusion layer of high-temperature PEM fuel cells," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 235(C).
    18. Lee, F.C. & Ismail, M.S. & Ingham, D.B. & Hughes, K.J. & Ma, L & Lyth, S.M. & Pourkashanian, M., 2022. "Alternative architectures and materials for PEMFC gas diffusion layers: A review and outlook," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    19. Deng, Hao & Wang, Dawei & Wang, Renfang & Xie, Xu & Yin, Yan & Du, Qing & Jiao, Kui, 2016. "Effect of electrode design and operating condition on performance of hydrogen alkaline membrane fuel cell," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 1272-1278.
    20. Chen, Xueye & Li, Tiechuan & Shen, Jienan & Hu, Zengliang, 2017. "From structures, packaging to application: A system-level review for micro direct methanol fuel cell," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 669-678.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:227:y:2021:i:c:s0360544221007088. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.