Water Maintenance-Free Inorganic Proton Conductors for PEM Fuel Cells

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will identify and characterize novel inorganic proton conducting materials which do not require water maintenance for protonic transport. These materials could be used as membranes in proton exchangemembrane fuel cells as well as in a wide variety of hydrogen separation applications. The composite materials of interest will be based on hydrogen sulphates and selenates of large monovalent cations heterogeneously doped with nanoscale secondary phasesof oxyacid salts. Dense composite membranes of different compositions will be fabricated using various preparation techniques, and will subsequently be tested for their structural, electrochemical, and transport properties, as well as their stabilities.The composite materials showing the most promise will then be incorporated into laboratory scale membrane reactor configurations where their ability to mediate hydrogen without the need of water will be experimentally determined. Prototype proton exchangemembrane fuel cells based on these composites will also be built and evaluated.Successful completion of this program will result in identifying a new generation of proton exchange membrane fuel cells for electricity generation. Full implementation of thistechnology would be of significant economic and technical benefit to the Army and other government components as well as industries by providing low cost, high reliability, high efficiency fuel cells through the elimination of water-management systems. Inaddition, these membranes can be applied to a variety of hydrogen separation process and can act as novel reactors for carrying out different chemistries such as hydrogenation and dehydrogenation reactions at potentially lower costs and higher yieldscompared to other conventional processes.