Extended hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell

Stanic, V. and Hoberecht, M., MEA failure mechanisms in PEM fuel cells operated on hydrogen and oxygen, in Extended Abstracts of2004 Fuel Cell Seminar, San Antonio, TX, November 1-5, 2004, p. 85. 

It is well known today that perhaps the most dramatic application of the fuel cell—an electrochemical device that may be based in the future upon the oxidation of aliphatic hydrocarbons— was in the Gemini Space Mission. In this application, the cell was based upon the use of a solid polymer electrolyte —a cation-exchange membrane in its acid form—but with hydrogen and oxygen as the fuels rather than an aliphatic hydrocarbon. Considerable research and development preceded and supported these successful missions and the units demonstrated that indeed the H2/O2 fuel cell was capable of extended performance at relatively high current densities—2l capability of fundamental importance in commercial applications. 

Figure 4.62. Examples of three-dimensional supports for extended reaction zone anodes in direct liquid fuel cells, (a) unpressed graphite felt UGF, (h) pressed graphite felt GF, (c) reticulated vitreous earhon RVC [250, 305]. (Reprinted from Electrochimica Acta, 51(25), Bauer A, Gyenge EL, Oloman CW, Eleetrodeposition of Pt-Ru nanoparticles on fibrous carbon substrates in the presence of nonionie surfactant Apphcation for methanol oxidation, 5356-64, 2006, with permission from Elsevier, and reproduced by permission of ECS— The Electrochemical Society, Gyenge EL, Oloman CW. The surfactant-promoted electroreduction of oxygen to hydrogen peroxide.)...

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