Elucidation of membrane interface chemistry for electro-chemical processes

燃料电池作为一种无污染的替代能源已经得到推广。然而，存在基于所使用的材料的几个约束，其限制了该技术的实施。该提案提供了对材料中发生的化学过程以及材料之间界面处发生的化学过程的理解，这些化学过程驱动了该技术以及该化学过程对材料造成的变化。这将使燃料电池系统的设计和材料的选择，以减轻这些变化，降低性能。发生在燃料电池（高温和低温系统）的电化学过程并不是唯一的这项技术，并证明在所有温度范围内（从室温到1200摄氏度）的研究的有效性，我们还将着眼于使用双相膜分离二氧化碳。虽然仍然是一个新兴的技术，这些膜遇到类似的问题，燃料电池，是非常令人兴奋的潜在的短期解决方案，为现有的能源发电系统，其中CO2产生。几个非常强大的，尖端的，分析技术是可用的，当应用在真实的时间将允许在原子水平上的化学观察。因此，可以识别和解释由系统操作引起的变化。该项目将现有最先进技术的应用与这些技术的发展结合起来，以便研究人员能够跟踪燃料化学转化为动力或二氧化碳分离的变化。这项工作的潜在好处是，通过对化学的更深入了解，所有三种技术的市场途径都将得到加强。因此，采用这些系统的环境潜力将得到实现。此外，在工作系统中跟踪过程的能力将引起从事平行学科工作的科学界的极大兴趣，例如防止腐蚀的屏障设计。

Fuel cells have been promoted as a pollution free alternative for energy generation. However, there are several constraints, based around the materials used, which have limited the implementation of this technology. This proposal provides the understanding of the chemical processes occurring in the materials and at the interfaces between the materials which drive the technology and the changes this chemistry causes to the materials. This will enable the design of fuel cell systems and choice of materials to mitigate these changes which reduce performance.The electro-chemical processes which occur in fuel cells (both high and low temperature systems) are not unique to this technology and to demonstrate the efficacy of the study across all temperature ranges (from room temperature to 1200oC) we will also look at the separation of CO2 using dual phase membranes. While still an emerging technology, these membranes encounter similar problems to fuel cells and are extremely exciting as potential short term solutions for existing energy generation systems where CO2 is generated.Several extremely powerful, cutting edge, analytical techniques are available which when applied in real time will allow the observation of the chemistry at atomic level. As a consequence the changes caused by operation of the system can be identified and explained. This project couples the application of existing state-of-the-art techniques with the development of these techniques where necessary to allow researchers to follow the changes as the chemical transformation of fuels into power, or CO2 separation, occur.The potential benefit of this work is that the route to market for all three technologies will be enhanced by a deeper understanding of the chemistry. Hence, the environmental potential of the adoption of these systems will be realised. In addition, the ability to follow processes within working systems will be of great interest to the scientific community working in parallel disciplines such as the design of barriers to prevent corrosion.