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Study of a highly durable low-humidification membrane electrode assembly using crosslinked polyvinyl alcohol for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells

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Abstract

A low-humidification membrane electrode assembly (MEA) for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) is prepared by adding the hydrophilic polymer: polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) to the anode catalyst layer. Glutaraldehyde (GA) is employed as a crosslinking agent for PVA to prevent washing from the anode during cell operation. This is confirmed by an immersion test in deionized water for 2 h. A single cell test is conducted at 80 °C, ambient pressure, and 50 % relative humidity. Although MEA containing 1 wt% non-crosslinked PVA shows the best initial performance (788 mA cm−2 at 0.6 V), a considerable performance decrease of 41 % is observed following a 100-h durability test. However, MEA containing 5 wt% crosslinked PVA demonstrates enhanced durability, with little performance decline after 100 h of constant current operation. This strongly suggests that crosslinked PVA plays a crucial role in a low-humidification MEA at low humidity levels.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partly supported by the framework of the Research and Development Program of the Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER) (B5-2415) and the World Premium Material (WPM) Program of the Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT) grant funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, Republic of Korea (No. 10037748).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fuel Cell Research Center, Korea Institute of Energy Research, 71-2, Jang-dong, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 305-343, Korea

    Eun-Young Kim, Sung-Dae Yim, Byungchan Bae, Tae-Hyun Yang & Seok-Hee Park

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering, Chungnam National University, 99, Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 305-764, Korea

    Eun-Young Kim & Ho-Suk Choi

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  1. Eun-Young Kim
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  2. Sung-Dae Yim
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  3. Byungchan Bae
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  4. Tae-Hyun Yang
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  5. Seok-Hee Park
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Correspondence to Seok-Hee Park.

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Kim, EY., Yim, SD., Bae, B. et al. Study of a highly durable low-humidification membrane electrode assembly using crosslinked polyvinyl alcohol for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells. J Solid State Electrochem 20, 1723–1730 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-016-3179-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-016-3179-6

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