Ford Motor Company Limited

Daimler Ag

Toray Industries, Inc.

Cellcentric Gmbh & Co. Kg

Keping Wang

Yunsong Yang

Jing Li

Owen Thomas

Scott McDermid

Carmen Chuy

Yuquan Zou

Daisuke Izuhara

Sean M MacKinnon

Hiroaki Umeda

Timothy James Peckham

Sumit Kundu

Yuka Fujieda

Lukas M Bonorand

A method for manufacturing a membrane assembly for a fuel cell, which membrane assembly includes a membrane with a catalyst layer and a frame arranged on the same side of the membrane and a gap between the catalyst layer and the frame. To allow an easy and cost-effective way for manufacturing such a membrane assembly, the manufacturing method may include the following steps:

Method for manufacturing a membrane assembly for a fuel cell with catalyst-free edge to the frame; membrane assembly and fuel cell with membrane assembly

Improved additives can be used to prepare polymer electrolyte for membrane electrode assemblies in polymer electrolyte fuel cells. Use of these improved additives can not only improve durability and performance, but can also provide a marked performance improvement during initial conditioning of the fuel cells. The additives are chemical complexes comprising certain metal and organic ligand components.

Composite proton conducting electrolyte with improved additives for fuel cells

An excellent polymer electrolyte composition has excellent chemical stability of being resistant to strong oxidizing atmosphere during operation of fuel cell, and achieves excellent proton conductivity under low-humidification conditions, excellent mechanical strength and physical durability. A polymer electrolyte membrane, a membrane electrode assembly, and a polymer electrolyte fuel cell each use the same. The polymer electrolyte composition contains an ionic group-containing polymer (A), a phosphorus-containing additive (B), and a nitrogen-containing aromatic additive (C), the phosphorus-containing additive (B) and the nitrogen-containing aromatic additive (C) being a compound represented by specific structural formulae.

Polymer electrolyte composition and polymer electrolyte membrane, polymer electrolyte membrane with catalyst layer, membrane electrode assembly, and polymer electrolyte fuel cell each using the same

Additives can be used to prepare polymer electrolyte for membrane electrode assemblies in polymer electrolyte fuel cells in order to improve both durability and performance. The additives are chemical complexes comprising certain metal and organic ligand components.

A small molecule or polymer additive can be used in preparation of a membrane electrode assembly to improve its durability and performance under low relative humidity in a fuel cell. Specifically, a method of forming a membrane electrode assembly comprising a proton exchange membrane, comprises providing an additive comprising at least two nitrogen atoms to the membrane electrode assembly.

Composite proton conducting membrane with low degradation and membrane electrode assembly for fuel cells

A proton conducting copolymer electrolyte with competitive voltage versus current density characteristics and superior durability comprises a proton conducting hydrophilic domain comprising a sulfonated poly(phenylene) polymer, and a hydrophobic domain comprising a main chain comprising a plurality of bonded arylene groups wherein essentially all of the bonds in the main chain of the copolymer are carbon-carbon or, to a certain extent, carbon-sulfone bonds. More particularly, none of the bonds in the chains of the copolymer are ether bonds. Due to the absence of ether bonds, the copolymer electrolyte is less susceptible to degradation in solid polymer fuel cells.

Sulfonated poly(phenylene) copolymer electrolyte for fuel cells

Ligand additives having two or more coordination sites in close proximity can be used in the polymer electrolyte of membrane electrode assemblies in solid polymer electrolyte fuel cells in order to reduce the dissolution of catalyst, particularly from the cathode, and hence reduce fuel cell degradation over time.

Additives to mitigate catalyst layer degradation in fuel cells

A proton conducting polymer electrolyte comprising a proton conducting ionomer cross-linked with an amount of a copolymer additive comprising cross-linking functional groups and other functional groups (e.g. proton carriers, chelating agents, radical scavengers) shows improved durability over the ionomer alone and provides for more stable inclusion of these other functional groups. The copolymer additive comprises at least two types of metal oxide monomers, one having cross-linking functional groups and the other having the other functional groups.

Proton conducting electrolytes with cross-linked copolymer additives for use in fuel cells

A water insoluble additive for improving the performance of an ion-exchange membrane, such as in the context of the high temperature operation of electrochemical fuel cells. The insoluble additive comprises a metal oxide cross-linked matrix having proton conducting groups covalently attached to the matrix through linkers. In one embodiment, the metal is silicon and the cross-linked matrix is a siloxane cross-linked matrix containing silicon atoms cross-linked by multiple disiloxy bonds and having proton conducting groups covalently attached to the silicon atoms through alkanediyl linkers.

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Richmond, CA, United States of America

Keping Wang