ABSTRACT
Although fuel cells were invented in the middle of the nineteenth century (Yeager 1961), they did not nd the rst application until space exploration in the 1960s with the alkaline fuel cell or the so-called Bacon fuel cell (Whittingham et al. 2004). During the past two decades, a conuence of driving forces has created a sustained and signicant worldwide effort to develop fuel cell materials and systems. These driving needs include the demand for efcient energy systems for transportation, the desire to reduce greenhouse gases, CO2 and particulate emissions and other negative
7.1 Introduction to Fuel Cells ............................................................................. 113 7.2 Benets of Nanometer Size Effects .............................................................. 117
7.2.1 Nanomaterials for Fuel Cell Electrodes............................................ 117 7.2.1.1 Electrocatalysts in Low-Temperature Fuel Cells ............... 118 7.2.1.2 Catalyst Support in Low-Temperature Fuel Cells .............. 127 7.2.1.3 Electrodes in SOFCs .......................................................... 131
7.2.2 Enhanced Ionic Conductivity and Structural Stability for Electrolyte ......................................................................................... 132 7.2.2.1 Electrolyte for PEMFCs and DMFCs ................................ 132 7.2.2.2 Electrolyte for SOFCs ........................................................ 134
7.3 Membrane Electrode Assembly .................................................................... 136 7.3.1 Novel MEAs for Low-Temperature Fuel Cells ................................. 136 7.3.2 A Nonelectrolyte-Separator SOFCs ................................................. 138
7.4 Current Limitations in Nanomaterials for Fuel Cells ................................... 139 7.4.1 Fabrication of MEAs and Fuel Cells ................................................ 140 7.4.2 Disadvantages of Nanomaterials ...................................................... 140
7.4.2.1 Poor Durability in Fuel Cells ............................................. 140 7.4.2.2 Toxicity from Nanomaterials ............................................. 141
7.5 Conclusions ................................................................................................... 141 Acknowledgment ................................................................................................... 142 References .............................................................................................................. 142
environmental impacts, and the demand for high-energy density power sources for portable electronic applications. Fuel cell technologies are now approaching commercialization, especially in the elds of portable power sources-distributed and remote generators of electrical energy. Due to the high level of interest in fuel cells during the past decade or so, there have been numerous summary articles and symposia focused on the technology state of the art. In this chapter, we present a series of nanomaterials that deal with applications related to fuel cell development.
