{"id":5418,"date":"2022-09-13T13:31:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-13T13:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prod.zbt.compositas.io\/news\/projekt-protonly-graphenschicht-verbessert-performance-von-dmbzs\/"},"modified":"2025-01-28T13:34:10","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T13:34:10","slug":"protonly-project-graphene-layer-improves-performance-of-dmfcs","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/zbt.de\/en\/news\/protonly-project-graphene-layer-improves-performance-of-dmfcs\/","title":{"rendered":"PROTONLY project: Graphene layer improves performance of DMFCs"},"content":{"rendered":"
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PROTONLY project: Graphene layer improves performance of DMFCs<\/h2>\n
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A graphene layer can significantly reduce the permeability of a fuel cell membrane without affecting the proton conductivity too much. ZBT and AMO have worked out how this can be done in the joint PROTONLY project.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Membranes<\/b>\u00a0in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFC), direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC) or vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFB) should simultaneously be\u00a0as permeable as possible for protons<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0as dense as possible for operating media<\/b>. Together with project partner AMO Gesellschaft f\u00fcr Angewandte Mikro- und Optoelektronik from Aachen, Germany, ZBT has made great progress in this direction in the project “PROTONLY – New membrane generation with proton-permeable barrier layers for electrochemical applications”.<\/p>\n

During the project, a process was developed with which\u00a0graphene layers<\/b>\u00a0can be applied to perfluorosulfonic acid (PFSA) membranes in such a way that the targeted improvements could be achieved, particularly in the field of DMFC applications. Further\u00a0modification<\/b>\u00a0of the entire barrier-membrane-electrode composite also contributed to this.<\/p>\n

When operating a DMFC with 5-molar methanol solution, the\u00a0permeability<\/b>\u00a0of a coated Nafion\u2122 115 membrane was\u00a0reduced by a factor of almost 20<\/b>\u00a0compared to an uncoated membrane. At the same time, a reduction in protonic conductivity of about 17% was measured. The losses in protonic conductivity are thus 7 percentage points higher than the target set, but this was also set in combination with an improvement in the barrier effect by a factor of 10. Thus, a proton flux reduced by only 17 % with a simultaneous reduction in methanol permeation by a factor of 20 appears to be an enormous success.<\/p>\n

As a result of the greatly increased barrier effect with acceptable restriction of the proton conductivity, a\u00a03.8-fold increase in performance<\/b>\u00a0was thus recorded in 5-molar DMFC operation compared with an uncoated membrane.<\/p>\n

This is explained not least by an\u00a0increase in the total conductivity<\/b>\u00a0through the plane of the entire membrane electrode assembly (MEA) by about 17 % from 3.08 mS\/cm to 3.6 mS\/cm. Electronic (contact) resistances and crossover-related reaction resistances also play a role in the overall conductivity, which could be significantly reduced by using graphene.<\/p>\n

In addition to the DMFC, a\u00a0fundamental blocking effect<\/b>\u00a0was also observed in the vanadium redox flow battery during the project, but here the graphene layer was only stable for a short time. In the case of the PEMFC, the significantly increased blocking effect unfortunately did not compensate for the significantly reduced proton conduction. The measured performance data were lower than those without the graphene layer.<\/p>\n

Reg. No.: 49VF170040 (INNO-KOM)
\nShort title: PROTONLY
\nDuration: 1 November 2018 – 31 December 2021
\nDepartment of Electrochemical Components<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n

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