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hello i want to thank you for taking the time to look at this video
on the physical chemistry toward proton exchange membrane fuel cell advance
i presenting in about half of myself karen's wider lines and my co author stephen
campbell
i work at the naval research laboratory in washington d c
and stephen works for the automotive fuel cell collaborative corporation or a f c and
barnaby canada
reaction fuel cells a simple
hydrogen and oxygen are combined electro chemically to make water and eight
the hydrogen is a exercise bike at a list of the in a to me
protons and electrons the protons passed through proton exchange membrane all the electrons provide power
to a low
and their recombine on a caff the catalyst
with oxygen to make water
fuel cells are now being used in everything from automobiles
two unmanned air vehicles
i'm holding in my hand at three hundred watt fuel cells to what i would
like to see is the stacked be much smaller and less expensive and use hydrogen
fuel more efficiently
from our perspective the path to the next generation cost effective fuel cells lies in
making more efficient higher power systems
in this path must be forged physical chemistry
the most important thing to do is improve the catalyst activity and then create an
electrode structure they can take advantage of that higher activity
this electron microscopy picture shows the standard fuel cell catalyst a banana scale platinum clusters
a porous carbon
a lot of theory has been done on just the platinum alone how duck analyses
the production of oxygen to water
theory has been used successfully to understand and project alternatives
platinum alloys to non platinum catalyst
here's a molecular dynamics representation of the cathode catalyst layer
the platinum catalyst in purple is on a carbon support
and then surrounded by an a few known i a number which conducts protons and
the sitting in the middle of water
oxygen and nitrogen gas as
you can see that a real catalyst layers very complicated and much work needs to
be done to understand and improve this complicated three dimensional multi phase structure
this is one the catalyst coded membranes a goes in the fuel cell their challenges
we characterize in the catalyst consistently both in terms of it selector chemical properties and
how it occupies the catalyst later in the fuel cell
with new high performance catalyst we need to rethink a lot of the fuel cell
even down to the details of the inter facial resistance between the materials
there are many opportunities for thing at scandalous theory in characterisation tools
we're excited the fuel cells are being demonstrated in many applications today and look forward
to many more advances in physical chemistry which will lead to smaller cheaper and more
efficient fuel cells have been widely used in the push for free energy thanks for
watching this video hope that you enjoy the p