Hydrogen is becoming an increasingly attractive alternative fuel, especially for heavy-duty vehicles like trucks.
Hydrogen-powered vehicles have the big advantage of only emitting water vapor as exhaust, and if the hydrogen is produced using renewable energy, it results in zero carbon dioxide emissions.
Unlike electric vehicles that rely on batteries and can strain the electricity grid, hydrogen can be produced and stored when electricity is cheap, making it a flexible and eco-friendly option.
Some hydrogen-powered vehicles use fuel cells to generate power. However, these fuel cells have a limited lifespan because certain parts, like electrodes and membranes, wear out over time.
This has been a significant hurdle for the widespread use of hydrogen-powered vehicles, but recent research from Chalmers University of Technology offers hope for overcoming this challenge.
The researchers at Chalmers have developed a new method to study how fuel cells age by closely monitoring specific particles within the fuel cell during operation.
In their study, they took apart a fuel cell at regular intervals and used advanced electron microscopes to observe how the cathode electrode, a crucial part of the fuel cell, degrades over time.
Their findings were recently published in the journal ACS Catalysis.
What makes this study different from previous ones is that the researchers looked at the entire fuel cell under real operating conditions, rather than just half of it, which was the common practice before.
This approach gave them a much clearer picture of how and when the fuel cell components start to deteriorate.
“We were surprised to find that taking apart and studying the fuel cell didn’t affect its performance as much as we thought it would,” says Björn Wickman, Associate Professor at Chalmers. This discovery allowed the researchers to examine the fuel cell at both the nano and micro levels, pinpointing exactly where and when degradation occurs. This deeper understanding is crucial for designing new and improved fuel cells with longer lifespans.
The U.S. Department of Energy has highlighted that increasing the lifespan of fuel cells is essential for making hydrogen-powered vehicles, especially trucks, commercially viable. A typical truck needs to be able to drive for 20,000 to 30,000 hours over its lifetime, something current fuel cells can’t yet achieve.
With this new research, scientists have laid the groundwork for developing better, longer-lasting fuel cells.
The next steps will involve using this method to create and test new materials that could extend the life of fuel cells, bringing us closer to a future where hydrogen-powered vehicles are more common on the roads.
Source: Chalmers University of Technology.
