Fuel Cells

Sandia has expertise in synthesizing and characterizing ion-containing separators employed in fuel cells and electrolysers. Sandia has developed and patented a novel class of poly(phenylene)s that has shown promise in both acidic and alkaline fuel cells, flow batteries and electrolysers. Sandia has developed an alkaline separator in a fuel cell that maintained low resistance over 300 hours, while a popular candidate failed after only 100 hours. The Sandia alkaline separator technologies show a long-term durability (greater than 2000 hours) as an electrolyser separator, compared to 800 hours obtained by a commercial standard.

Cy Fujimoto

(505) 844-6432

chfujim@sandia.gov

“Highly quaternized polystyrene ionomers for high performance anion exchange membrane water electrolysers”, D. Li, E.J. Park, W. Zhu, Q. Shi, Y. Zhou, H. Tian, Y. Lin, A. Serov, B. Zulevi, E.D. Baca, C. Fujimoto, Nature Energy, 09 March 2020, pp. 1-8.
“Phenyl Oxidation Impacts the Durability of Alkaline Membrane Water Electrolyzer”, Dongguo Li, Ivana Matanovic, Albert S. Lee, Eun Joo Park, Cy Fujimoto, Hoon T. Chung, Yu Seung Kim, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2019, 11, 10, 9696-9701.
“Toward Improved Alkaline Membrane Fuel Cell Performance Using Quaternized Aryl-Ether Free Polyaromatics”, Sandip Maurya, Cy H. Fujimoto, Michael R. Hibbs, Claudia Narvaez Villarrubia, Yu Seung Kim, Chemistry of Materials, 2018, 30, 7, 2188-2192.
Sandia National Laboratories researchers demonstrate the clarity of patented membranes.