Amphiphilic Ti porous transport layer for highly effective PEM unitized regenerative fuel cells.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 33762347.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.abf7866 and PMC identifier 7990350.
- Licence recorded as CC BY-NC.
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Abstract
Polymer electrolyte membrane unitized regenerative fuel cells (PEM-URFCs) require bifunctional porous transport layers (PTLs) to play contradictory roles in a single unitized system: hydrophobicity for water drainage in the fuel cell (FC) mode and hydrophilicity for water supplement in the electrolysis cell (EC) mode. Here, we report a high-performance amphiphilic Ti PTL suitable for both FC and EC modes, thanks to alternating hydrophobic and hydrophilic channels. To fabricate the amphiphilic PTL, we used a shadow mask patterning process using ultrathin polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) brush as a hydrophobic surface modifier, which can change the Ti PTL's surface polarity without decreasing its electrical conductivity. Consequently, performance improved by 4.3 times in FC (@ 0.6 V) and 1.9 times in EC (@ 1.8 V) from amphiphilic PTL. To elucidate reason for performance enhancement, discrete gas emission through the hydrophobic channels in amphiphilic PTL was verified under scanning electrochemical microscopy.