2-D materials as the next generation membranes in hydrogen generation and low temperature fuel cells.

燃料电池已经被推广为一种无污染的替代能源，可以将氢转化为电。有几个制约因素限制了这项技术的实施，本提案解决了所有主要问题。制造氢需要能源，使用传统方法需要电力来电解水，如果电力来自化石燃料，那么问题只是移动而不是解决。使用可再生能源需要电解槽，其中由来源（风能，太阳能，潮汐能等）间歇性产生的能量通过现场聚合物电解质膜（PEM）电解槽在源头转化为氢气。PEM电解槽的问题在于，所用的膜需要很厚，以防止氢与氧混合形成爆炸性混合物，但膜的厚度会降低效率。类似的问题也出现在燃料电池中，氢转化为电需要PEM燃料电池，膜和电解槽一样，需要很厚来防止燃料交叉，但这又降低了效率。第三种技术是直接甲醇燃料电池（DMFC），旨在解决氢储存的问题，但膜的厚度和燃料交叉限制了膜的效率。在这项工作中，我们打算利用石墨烯和六方氮化硼（hBN）的特性，它们已被证明允许质子通过，但阻止所有其他材料的传输，并将它们应用于所讨论的三种技术。制造无缺陷屏障膜的材料挑战将与更有效地利用昂贵的铂催化剂的额外好处一起解决。这项工作的潜在好处是，氢气生产将变得更有效率，燃料电池中将燃料转化为电力的成本将随着燃料电池总成本的降低而降低。这将使“绿色氢”作为一种能量储存介质的使用成为可能，并使质子交换膜燃料电池进入市场，这是将氢（和其他燃料，如甲醇）转化为电能所必需的。这项研究的另一个潜在好处是由支撑的石墨烯或hBN完全取代膜材料。这将有助于减少燃料电池的体积，因为燃料将不再需要加湿，因此将有更少的组件，这对于移动/便携式应用非常重要。

Fuel cells have been promoted as a pollution free alternative for energy generation when converting hydrogen into electricity. There are several constraints which have limited the implementation of this technology and this proposal addresses all of the major problems.To make hydrogen requires energy and using conventional methods requires electricity to electrolyse water, if the electricity comes from fossil fuels then the problem is simply moved rather than solved. To use renewable energy requires electrolysers where the energy intermittently generated by the source (wind, solar, tidal etc) is converted into hydrogen at source by an on-site Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) Electrolyser. The problem with PEM electrolysers is that the membrane used needs to be thick to prevent hydrogen mixing with oxygen to form an explosive mixture but the thickness of the membrane reduces efficiency.Similar problems manifest themselves in fuel cells, the conversion of hydrogen back into electricity requires a PEM fuel cell, the membrane is the same as in the electrolyser and again needs to be thick to prevent fuel crossover but this again reduces efficiency. A third technology, the Direct Methanol Fuel Cell (DMFC) was developed to address the problems around hydrogen storage but again the membrane is the same and again thickness and fuel crossover constrain the efficacy of the membrane.In this work we intend to take the properties of the graphene and hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) which have been proven to allow protons to pass but prevent all other transport of materials and apply them to the three technologies discussed. The materials challenges around the manufacture of a defect free barrier membrane will be tackled with the added benefit of utilising the expensive platinum catalyst more efficiently.The potential benefit of this work is that hydrogen production will become more efficient and the cost of converting the fuel into electricity in a fuel cell will decrease as the overall cost of the fuel cell is reduced. This will make viable the use of 'green hydrogen' as an energy storage medium and enable the route to market for PEM fuel cells which are necessary to convert the hydrogen (and other fuels such as methanol) into electrical energy. Another potential benefit of this study is the complete replacement of the membrane material by a supported graphene or hBN. This will facilitate the reduction in volume of a fuel cell, as the fuel will no longer need to be humidified so there will be fewer components, which is important for mobile/portable applications.