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Nafion ® nanofibers and their effect on polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell performance
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Nafion ® nanofibers and their effect on polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell performance

Joshua D. Snyder and Yossef A. Elabd
Journal of power sources, v 186(2), pp 385-392
2009
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2008.10.039
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel

Abstract

Catalyst layer Fuel cells Nanofibers Triple phase boundary
Current fuel cell research is focused on reducing manufacturing costs by reducing platinum catalyst loading without sacrificing performance. Although improvements have been demonstrated by using platinum supported on porous carbon nanoparticles, significant losses in “active” platinum surface area within the catalyst layer (CL) still occur. Optimizing the reactant gas/Nafion ®/platinum triple phase boundary (TPB) in the CL (i.e., CL morphology) will result in increased “active” catalyst area and overall fuel cell performance. In this study, the effect of temperature on the formation of Nafion ® nanofibers in the CL during fuel cell operation and its subsequent improvement on fuel cell performance was clearly characterized. Post mortem scanning electron micrographs clearly show that Nafion ® nanofibers improve the TPB, where Nafion ® nanofibers act as a more efficient proton transport route from the catalyst particles to the polymer electrolyte membrane reducing ohmic and mass transport resistance.

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8 Record Views
35 citations in Web of Science
40 citations in Scopus

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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#7 Affordable and Clean Energy

InCites Highlights

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Chemistry, Physical
Electrochemistry
Energy & Fuels
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
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