Anion exchange membrane fuel cell (AEMFC) is expected as a promising power source candidate as it may enables the adoption of non-precious metal catalysts; therfore, it exhibits great advantages over proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) using precious metal catalysts . However, AEMFCs are much less understood than PEMFCs. As a key component, the membrane electrode assembly plays an important role in AEMFCs. The electrode fabrication and resulting microstructure largely determinates the performance of AEMFCs.

In this work, the electrode microstructure of a AEMFC was investigated. The ionomer content in catalyst layers as well as the dispersion solvents for catalyst inks have shown a strong impact on the active, ohmic and mass-diffusion polarization losses of a AEMFC. Performance measurements of a single cell, as well as a stack, were implemented to evaluate the feasibility of AEMFC applications. Pt-free AEMFC stack was assembled and tested in DICP.

In addition, a novel cathode architecture is also developed., which uses vertically aligned nanoneedle arrays as an oriented catalyst support for the AEMFC Without ionomer, the oriented catalyst layer shows its potential application in AEMFCs.