The Study on the Synergistic Effect of Anti-Poisoning Electrocatalyst and Self-Humidifying Proton Exchange Membrane for Hydrogen Fuel Cell

Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is an attractive power source due to its high efficiency, low emission and portable properties. However, electrode catalyst is one of main obstacles for PEMFC commercialization because of high noble metal loading and poor anti impurity-poisoning activity of the common Pt/carbon electrocatalyst. Though high temperature operation is beneficial to improve electrocatalyst activity, low glass transition temperature of traditional perfluorosulfonic acid (PFSA) polymer-based proton exchange membrane limits the operating temperature of PEMFC below 80^oC. In our previous works, we developed new high-temperature self-humidifying proton exchange membrane by confining PFSA polymer within zeolite-coated porous substrate, and new anti carbon monoxide-poisoning electrocatalyst based on Pt-supported titanium carbide and titanium nitride (Pt/TiCN). Herein we combine Pt/TiCN catalyst and confined PFSA-zeolite composite membrane to improve the performance of PEMFC under high temperature, dry feed and low-purity fuel conditions. The results show that PEMFC with confined PFSA-zeolite composite membrane and Pt/TiCN catalyst outputs 120% and 13 times higher maximum power density than PEMFC with confined PFSA-zeolite composite membrane and Pt/C catalyst and PEMFC with commercial Nafion 117 membrane and Pt/C catalyst without humidification, respectively. It is believed that accelerated catalytic process on Pt/TiCN electrocatalyst contributes to the generation of more water and water retention capability of confined PFSA-zeolite composite membrane lowers proton transport resistance, thus leading to obviously improved fuel cell performance.