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University of South Carolina

Theses and Dissertations

Theses/Dissertations

2014

Fuel cell

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Quantifying Individual Losses In A Direct Methanol Fuel Cell, Jennifer Rae Ruffing Dec 2014

Quantifying Individual Losses In A Direct Methanol Fuel Cell, Jennifer Rae Ruffing

Theses and Dissertations

The performance of a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) is complicated due to the complex interactions of kinetic and transport processes. As a result, changes in one aspect of the cell have consequences in other aspects, which are difficult to elucidate from the full-cell polarization (i.e. voltage vs. current) behavior that fuel cell researchers often use to characterize the performance of their systems. The objective of this work was to develop a strategy to use current and voltage relationships from anode half cells, cathode half-cells, and a hydrogen pump, coupled with methanol crossover data and a mathematical model, to quantify …


Understanding The Effect Of Contaminants From Bop Materials On Pemfc Electrode: Ex-Situ Studies, Mayukhee Das Aug 2014

Understanding The Effect Of Contaminants From Bop Materials On Pemfc Electrode: Ex-Situ Studies, Mayukhee Das

Theses and Dissertations

Off-the-shelf Balance of Plant (BOP) materials for proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) systems may be more economical than custom-prepared materials. However, they pose a higher risk of decreased performance of a PEMFC by contaminating the electrodes. This dissertation contributes to the understanding of the mechanisms of electrode contamination by studying the effect of leachate extracts and model compounds from structural plastics and assembly aids that may be used as BOP materials. The effect of contamination was investigated by measuring the decrease in electrochemical surface area (ECA) of the Pt/C catalyst and the change in the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) …


Structure-Property Relationships In Polybenzimidazole Materials For Gas Separation And Fuel Cell Applications, Xin Li Jan 2014

Structure-Property Relationships In Polybenzimidazole Materials For Gas Separation And Fuel Cell Applications, Xin Li

Theses and Dissertations

The central theme of my research lies in the investigation of novel polybenzimidazole (PBI)-based materials for different energy related applications ranging from proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) to high temperature gas separation. With the aid of a deeper understanding of the structure-property relationships in this class of materials, a better control on PBI chemistry - from monomer structure to polymer morphology to membrane/film processing method was able to be performed in order to achieve greater performance in targeted applications.

In Chapter 1, the overall background of two energy related applications - fuel cells and gas separation was first introduced …