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Performance of Amorphous NiNb-based Alloys in a Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC)

Pages: 081-085

J. Barranco* and A. R. Pierna

Chemical Engineering and Environment Department, University of the Basque Country.
Plaza de Europa, 20018 San Sebastián. Spain

Received: April 2, 2009 , Accepted: June 6, 2009

Abstract:
Because the deposition of the catalysts on the proton exchange membrane is of great importance for preparing an efficient membrane electrode assembling, which will be part of a hydrogen fuel cell, the aim of this work, is to study the effectiveness of the spray technique of the different amorphous catalysts (NiNb)99Pt1, and (NiNb)99 (PtSn)1, obtained by means of the Mechanical Alloying (MA), on the polymeric membrane. The evaluation of the effectiveness of spray will be studied through his efficacy in hydrogen fuel cell. With it, one tries to be able to optimize, the production process and assembly of the set membrane-electrode.
Different particle sizes have been used in the catalytic ink. Although they range between 0.3 ìm and 10 ìm, only a 2 % of the total amorphous catalyst remains in the reactor. It has been proved in this work that the best performance of the fuel cell is obtained using the (NiNb) 99 (PtSn)1 alloy as anode material. This result confirms the importance of alloying the noble metal Pt with another non-noble such as the Sn metal. This alloy showed a high carbon monoxide (CO) tolerance compare with the (NiNb)99Pt1 one, which is believed to be one of the main reasons of its higher catalytic activity for the hydrogen oxidation reaction.

Keywords:

Fuel cells, alloys, PEMF, hydrogen monocells.