Japanese Scientists Reinvent Fuel Cells With Graphene Breakthrough

A University of Tsukuba research team has successfully developed a new method that can prevent the crossover of large fuel molecules and suppress the degradation of electrodes in advanced fuel cell technology using methanol or formic acid

The successful sieving of the fuel molecules is achieved via selective proton transfers due to steric hindrance on holey graphene sheets that have chemical functionalization and act as proton-exchange membranes.

he research reporting paper “Suppression of Methanol and Formate Crossover through Sulfanilic?Functionalized Holey Graphene as Proton Exchange Membranes,” has been published in the journal Advanced Science.
For realizing carbon neutrality, the demand for the development of direct methanol/formic acid fuel cell technology has been increasing. In this technology, methanol or formic acid is used as an e-fuel for generating electricity. The fuel cells generate electricity via proton transfer; however, conventional proton-exchange membranes suffer from the “crossover phenomenon,” where the fuel molecules are also transferred between anodes and cathodes. Thereafter, the fuel molecules are unnecessarily oxidized and the electrodes are deactivated.