Self-Humidifying Electrolyte Membranes for Fuel Cells

Abstract

We propose self-humidifying polymer electrolyte membranes (PEM) with highly dispersed nanometer-sized Pt and/or metal oxides for polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs) operated with dry and The Pt particles were expected to suppress the crossover by the catalytic recombination of and while the oxide particles that have hygroscopic property were expected to adsorb the water produced at Pt particles together with that produced at the cathode reaction and to release the water once the PEM needs water. The preparation protocol of nanoparticles in a commercial Nafion 112 membrane via in situ sol-gel reactions was developed, resulting in a transparent membrane with uniform distribution of in the PEM. Water adsorbability increased more than two times by dispersing only 2 wt % in the PEM. That newly prepared -PEM cooperated with highly dispersed Pt nanoparticles (Pt--PEM) was confirmed to perform a self-humidifying operation in a PEFC with dry and © 2002 The Electrochemical Society. All rights reserved.