STXM studies of novel fuel cell structures under various temperature and humidity conditions

氢基聚合物电解质膜燃料电池（PEM-FC）具有显著减少固定和移动电源系统碳排放的巨大潜力。AFCC汽车燃料电池合作公司（简称AFCC），由福特和戴姆勒共同拥有，致力于生产经济、可靠、高性能的氢燃料电池，用于汽车应用。目前阻碍燃料电池广泛使用的一个因素是其可靠性。软x射线光谱显微镜是一种基于光源的技术，具有巨大的潜力，可以揭示燃料电池故障的原因，并提供可用于合理改进材料和工艺的信息。该项目建立在nserc支持的合作研究与开发（CRD）项目的基础上，该项目将于2013年8月完成。具体来说，我们将使用一种先进的环境电池进行原位x射线显微镜研究，这是在当前的CRD中开发的，以检查在典型和不利操作条件下与pemfc性能相关的几个基本问题。这有望改善燃料电池材料在寒冷气候下的坚固性。

Hydrogen based, polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEM-FC) have great potential to dramatically reduce carbon emissions from systems used for both stationary and mobile power. The AFCC Automotive Fuel Cell Cooperation Corp. (AFCC, for short), which is co-owned by Ford and Daimler, is dedicated to producing economic, reliable, high performance hydrogen fuel cells optimized for use in automotive applications. A factor currently impeding wider use of fuel cells is their reliability. Soft X-ray spectromicroscopy is a light-source based technique with tremendous potential to reveal causes of fuel cell failure and to provide information that can be used for rational improvement to materials and processes. This project builds on an NSERC-supported collaborative research and development (CRD) project which will finish in Aug. 2013. Specifically we will use an advanced environmental cell for in situ X-ray microscopy studies, which was developed in the current CRD, to examine several fundamental issues related to PEMFCs performance under both typically and adverse operating conditions. This is expected to improve how fuel cell materials are engineered to be robust in cold climates.