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Effects of Nano Metallic Catalysts on The Life-Time and Efficiency of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells

Hosseinpour, Milad | 2012

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  1. Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
  2. Language: English
  3. Document No: 43209 (58)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology, International Campus, Kish Island
  5. Department: Science and Engineering
  6. Advisor(s): Vesaghi, Mohammad Ali
  7. Abstract:
  8. The Fuel cell is an energy converter which converts the chemical energy of a chemical reaction to electricity and heat directly and without any pollution. One of the most important types of fuel cells is the proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell. The importance of PEM fuel cells is a result of their high energy density, quick start up ability, lower operating temperature, high efficiency and low or zero emissions. Catalysts play an important role in both costs and durability of PEM fuel cells. Alloying the Pt with other metals can increase the activity of the catalysts of the fuel cells and also reduces the amount of costly Pt. In this study, the nanoparticles of Ni were added to the cathode catalyst layer of a single PEM fuel cell by using a physical and non-wet method. The structural information of added nanoparticles was found by XRD measurements. The effects of operating temperature on the performance of the enriched cell were studied by using current-voltage measurements. The results show that performance is intensively affected by temperature and to gain better performance the cell’s temperature must be higher than hydrogen and oxygen temperatures. Besides this, the influence of these nanoparticles was characterized by modeling the obtained polarization curves. The results indicate that the nanoparticles which were added by using this physical method not only drawback the performance of the cell, but also decrease the efficiency of the cell
  9. Keywords:
  10. Catalysts ; Nanoparticles ; Temperature Effect ; Polarization Curve ; Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM)Fuel Cell

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