Surface Studies of Electroctalysts in Methanol Fuel Cells
EMSL Project ID
7990
Abstract
Neah Power Systems is developing small methanol fuel cells based upon a silicon architecture for mobile electronics such as laptop computers and PDAs. Neah's silicon architecture is expected to address the traditional challenges associated with micro fuel cells while providing long-lasting power. It eliminates the need for the polymer membrane used in traditional PEM-based fuel cells.To successfully commercialize Neah's methanol fuel cells, it is essential to study surface and microstructural properties such as surface elemental composition, chemical states of surface elements and grain structure of the electrocatalyst layers which are prepared according to Neah's proprietary proceses, and to correlate them with fuel cell performance.
The information Neah needs can be produced by means of x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning Auger microscopy and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy which are available at EMSL. The information that can be generated by XPS is most urgently needed.
Project Details
Project type
Exploratory Research
Start Date
2004-03-01
End Date
2004-06-21
Status
Closed
Released Data Link
Team
Principal Investigator
Related Publications
Smirnov S, NG Isern, ZG Jiang, DW Hoyt, and CJ Mcknight. 2007. "The Isolated Sixth Gelsolin Repeat and Headpiece Domain of Villin Bundle F-Actin in the Presence of Calcium and Are Linked by a 40-Residue Unstructured Sequence ." Biochemistry 46(25):7488-7496.