Efforts Towards Micro Fuel Cells

In the second part of this work, we developed a new class of proton conductors based on nanoporous silicon. Proton conducting electrolytes are crucial components in fuel cells. However, the implementation of prevalent polymer electrolyte membranes leads to difficulties in manufacturing the fuel cell structure at the micron scale. Here we show that nanoporous silicon membranes with a thickness around 30∼50 microns exhibit comparable proton conductivities as polymer electrolyte membranes. A non-optimized prototype micro fuel cell made of a nanoporous silicon membrane (37 microns thick) shows very promising performance. While running on formic acid and oxygen, the highest open circuit voltage is 0.79 V and the current density is 13.3 mA/cm2. These initial results show that nanoporous silicon membranes are very promising materials for electrolyte applications especially in silicon-based micro fuel cells. The technique can also be useful for other applications involving proton conduction.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Chemical Engineering

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Lu, Chang

Contributors dc:contributor

• Masel, Richard I.

• Energy

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3070373

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/82345