Novel anode based on sulfonated polysulfone for medium temperature direct methanol fuel cells

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• 作者：Florian Mack ; ¹ ; ³ ; ^{florian.mack@uni-ulm.de} ; ^{florian.mack@kit.edu} ; Viktor Gogel ; Ludwig Jö ; rissen ; Jochen Kerres²
• 关键词：DMFC ; Anode ; Ionomer ; Sulfonated polysulfone ; Catalyst ink ; Triton X-100
• 刊名：Journal of Power Sources
• 出版年：2013
• 出版时间：1 October, 2013
• 年：2013
• 卷：239
• 期：Complete
• 页码：651-658
• 全文大小：1907 K

文摘

Preparation of well performing electrodes using non fluorinated polymer electrolytes is a challenge due to the transport properties of the ion conducting polymer as well as due to the solvents involved. Polymer perfluorinated sulfonic acids such as Nafion^? are possible solvable as ionomer in the DMFC anode catalyst layer by concentrated methanol solution at temperatures above 100?¡ãC; therefore more stable polymers are necessary. In this work, we studied the conditions to use sulfonated polysulfone (sPSU) as an ionomer in the anode of a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) operating at a temperature of 130?¡ãC.

For preparing catalyst dispersions, toxic and flammable solvents were substituted by water using the harmless surfactant Triton X-100 as an additive. As a result the preparation of the catalyst inks and MEAs was accelerated and simplified. The sPSU based anodes showed quite high performance for the methanol oxidation especially in a half cell. The best results were obtained with an anode catalyst layer containing 5 % sPSU prepared from a water based ink containing 2 % sPSU and 20 % Triton X-100 sprayed on a Nafion^? 115 membrane.