Abstract
Alkaline exchange membrane fuel cells (AEMFCs) offer a promising solution for clean hydrogen utilization. However, effective water management remains a challenge due to the concurrent generation and consumption of water at the electrodes, which impacts the efficiency of AEMFCs at high current densities. Here, we report the fabrication of alkaline fuel cells with improved water management by employing a three-dimensionally patterned alkaline exchange membrane (AEM) at the interface with the cathode catalyst layer. This micropatterned AEM, made by soft lithography, enables a power density of 628 mW cm-2 at a current density of 1100 mA cm-2, representing an approximately 50% performance improvement over identical AEMFCs made from conventional two-dimensional AEMs. The patterned AEM also improves platinum utilization due to the increased catalyst-membrane contact area and tailored catalyst layer thickness.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 420-426 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | ACS Energy Letters |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 10 2025 |
Funding
This study was conducted within the framework of the Center for Alkaline-Based Energy Solutions (CABES), an Energy Frontier Research Center supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, under Award DE- SC0019445. This work was carried out in part at the Singh Center for Nanotechnology, which is supported by the NSF National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure Program under grant NNCI-2025608. Tianyue Gao would like to acknowledge the Vagelos Institute for Energy Science and Technology at the University of Pennsylvania for graduate fellowship. The authors acknowledge helpful discussion from Zhifei Yan.