Elucidation of membrane interface chemistry for electro-chemical processes

燃料电池已被推广为一种无污染的能源发电选择。然而，基于所使用的材料，有几个限制因素限制了这项技术的实施。这一建议提供了对材料中发生的化学过程以及材料之间的界面上发生的化学过程的理解，这些过程推动了技术，以及这种化学物质对材料造成的变化。这将使燃料电池系统的设计和材料的选择能够缓解这些降低性能的变化。燃料电池中发生的电化学过程(包括高温和低温系统)并不是这项技术所独有的，为了证明这项研究在所有温度范围(从室温到1200摄氏度)的有效性，我们还将研究使用双相膜分离二氧化碳。虽然这些膜仍然是一项新兴技术，但它们遇到的问题与燃料电池类似，对于产生二氧化碳的现有能源发电系统来说，作为潜在的短期解决方案非常令人兴奋。有几种极其强大、尖端的分析技术可用，当实时应用时，将允许在原子水平上观察化学。因此，可以识别和解释由系统运行引起的变化。该项目将现有最先进技术的应用与这些技术的开发结合在一起，在必要的情况下，使研究人员能够跟踪燃料转化为动力或二氧化碳分离发生的变化。这项工作的潜在好处是，通过对化学的更深入了解，所有三种技术的上市途径都将得到加强。因此，采用这些系统的环境潜力将得到实现。此外，在工作系统内遵循过程的能力将对从事平行学科工作的科学界非常感兴趣，例如设计屏障以防止腐蚀。

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.