A novel fuel cell architecture that operates without a polymer electrolyte membrane and is compatible with a variety of liquid fuels

Advantages

• Increased fuel utilization to reduce fuel crossover and allow higher fuel concentrations
• Flexibility for numerous liquid fuels
• Elimination of performance reducing effects of membranes such as ohmic losses, environmental sensitivity and  limited catalytic sites
• Compatible with conventional bipolar fuel cell configurations
• Reduced component costs due to elimination of polymer membrane

Technology Details

Researchers at the University of British Columbia have developed a new type of fuel cell with a novel architecture that can operate without the conventional polymer electrolyte membrane. The fuel cell operates similar to a conventional liquid fed fuel cell and is compatible with most types of fuel cell. Conventional membranes and fuel cell designs present limitations to fuel cell performance such as: fuel cross-over, degradation or contamination of membrane, ohmic losses and reduced active triple phase boundary sites for catalyst located away from the membrane/electrode interface region. The absence of a membrane in this new architecture alleviates many of these issues. The simplified design thus offers performance and cost advantages over conventional fuel cell architectures.