In operando measurement of localised cathode potential to mitigate DMFC temporary degradation

C. Rabissi*, E. Brightman, G. Hinds, A. Casalegno

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

14 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

An innovative external reference electrode technique has been applied to the cathode of an operating DMFC in order to identify variations in electrode potential across the active area of the cell. The evolution of cathode potential at two different locations in the cell was monitored during operation, with the primary focus on studying the potential dynamics during the temporary degradation recovery procedure, the so-called refresh cycle. The results highlight for the first time a non-uniform local recovery of temporary degradation at the cathode during refresh cycles, associated with varying rates of platinum oxide reduction across the cell, which could lead to current density redistribution and contribute to an uneven degradation of the components. The technique shows great promise for the improvement of long term DMFC performance via optimisation of refresh cycle protocols.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)9797-9802
Number of pages6
JournalInternational Journal of Hydrogen Energy
Volume43
Issue number20
Early online date27 Apr 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 17 May 2018

Funding

This work has been performed in the frame of the FCH JU FP7 projects Second Act (EC Grant Agreement n°621216) and the FCH-JU FP7 project H2FC European Research Infrastructure (EC Grant Agreement n°284522) under user access project 2071. The authors would like to thank Vania Cocca for the helpful support in the experimental measurements.

Keywords

  • cathode potential
  • direct methanol fuel cell
  • platinum oxides
  • reference electrode
  • temporary degradation

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