Method paves the way for improved fuel cell vehicles

Hydrogen is a gasoline various that’s turning into more and more attention-grabbing for heavy-duty automobiles. Hydrogen-powered automobiles solely emit water vapor as exhaust, and if the hydrogen is produced utilizing renewable vitality, it’s fully freed from carbon dioxide emissions.

Not like battery-powered electrical automobiles, hydrogen-powered automobiles don’t must burden the electricity gridas hydrogen could be produced and saved when electrical energy is affordable.

For some hydrogen-powered automobiles, the propulsion comes from a so-called fuel cell. Nonetheless, hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered automobiles are restricted by a comparatively quick lifespan, as a result of gasoline cell elements, reminiscent of electrodes and membranes, degrade over time. It’s this drawback {that a} current examine addresses.

Researchers at Chalmers College of Know-how have developed a brand new methodology for finding out what impacts the growing old of gasoline cells by monitoring a selected particle within the gasoline cell throughout use.

The crew of researchers studied a whole gasoline cell by taking it aside at common intervals. Utilizing superior electron microscopes, they then adopted how the cathode electrode degrades in particular areas through the cycles of use. The latest findings are published within the journal ACS Catalysis.

Earlier research have been finished on so-called half-cells, that are comparable (however not the identical as) half of a fuel-cell and are carried out below circumstances that differ considerably from the true gasoline cell.

Higher understanding with new experimental methodology

“It has previously been assumed that the performance would be affected by the fuel cell being disassembled and studied in the way we have done, but it turned out that this assumption is not correct, which is surprising,” says analysis chief Björn Wickman, Affiliate Professor on the Division of Physics at Chalmers.

The researchers at Chalmers have been in a position to discover how the fabric within the gasoline cell degrades at each the nano and micro degree, and pinpoint precisely when and the place the degradation happens. This gives worthwhile info for the event of recent and improved gasoline cells with an extended lifespan.

“From previously only looking at how the fuel cell has aged after use, we have now been able to look into the middle stage,” says doctoral scholar Linnéa Strandberg at Chalmers. “Being able to follow a single, chosen particle within a specific area provided a much better understanding of the degradation processes. Greater knowledge of these is an important step on the way to designing new materials for fuel cells or to adjust the control of the fuel cell.”

New methodology paves approach for longer lasting gasoline cells

The U.S. Division of Power (DOE) has identified that an improved lifetime of gasoline cells is among the most essential objectives to achieve earlier than gasoline cell-powered hydrogen automobiles can develop into commercially profitable. Based on the business, a truck wants to have the ability to stand up to 20,000—30,000 hours of driving over its lifetime, which a gasoline cell-powered hydrogen truck can not obtain at this time.

“We have now laid a foundation on which to build for the development of better fuel cells. Now we know more about the processes that take place in the fuel cell and at what point over the lifetime of the fuel cell they occur. In the future, the method will be used to develop and study new materials that can give the fuel cell a longer lifespan,” says Björn Wickman.