Field-Enhanced Carbon Monoxide Tolerance of Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) Fuel Cells

"To be commercially competitive, PEM fuel cells have to be able to run on readily available fuels. Fuel reformers are practical, but fuel cell anode catalysts are severely poisoned by small quantities of carbon monoxide from the reformer. Despite mucheffort invested into increasing CO tolerance, desired performance levels have not been achieved.Recent data has shown great promise in mitigating the effect of CO on the anode when magnetic particles are introduced into the fuel cell anode. Local magneticfields couple into kinetic pathways through spin polarization and can alter product distributions and reaction rates.The overall objective of this research is to demonstrate that incorporation of magnetic particles into the catalyst layers of an MEAincreases the CO tolerance of the anode, and to exceed state-of-the-art performance at CO levels around 100 ppm or higher, at temperatures below 100¿C. To this end, magnetic particles of different sizes will be fabricated and their physical and chemicalproperties studied. Membrane electrode assemblies will be fabricated incorporating these particles and their performance will be tested with a variety of techniques in order to gain a better understanding of the underlying mechanism and to defineperformance limits and favorable operating conditions. This project is anticipated to result in a great advancement in carbon monoxide tolerance and performance of reformate-fed hydrogen/air polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells. This will result inincreased efficiency and lower cost of fuel cells for transportation and stationary power applications."