Topic: Materials for Sustainable Energy: Fuel Cells, Hydrogen Generation and Storage
Fuel cells utilising either hydrogen or methanol are rapidly approaching techno-commercial viability for both stationary and automotive applications, but their costs and performance still require significant improvement before their widespread adoption as power-sources can be contemplated. For example, in polymer-electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells using hydrogen, there are still major membrane-materials challenges resulting from the need to increase cell operating temperatures and to reduce, or preferably avoid, the humidification currently needed to maintain proton conductivity in the membrane.
Catalysts for hydrogen dissociation/ionisation and for oxygen reduction are also vital components of fuel cells and here again improved materials are urgently required, especially catalysts with much improved CO-tolerance so that the need for ultra-pure hydrogen can be avoided. Widespread use of hydrogen as a fuel will in turn require new technologies for both its production and storage. For example, although atmospheric emissions from a hydrogen-based fuel cell comprise only pure water, many current processes for hydrogen-generation make use of hydrocarbon feedstocks, so that the emission of carbon dioxide is simply moved back one stage from the power-plant itself. In terms of hydrogen storage, solid-phase adsorption or reversible chemistry would be greatly preferred to the present cryogenic or high-pressure storage techniques, especially for transport applications, and here world-wide research programmes are currently under way to develop new, high-capacity, easily-reversible, hydrogen-storage materials.
Session: Materials for Sustainable Energy: Fuel Cells, Hydrogen Generation and Storage (i) - Tuesday 3 July (am)
Keynote
James McGrath
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA
Mesoporous poly (benzimidazole)
J Weber*, M Antonietti and A Thomas
Max-Planck-Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Germany
"Microblock" ionomer-membranes: enhancement of membrane performance in fuel cells through control of ionomer sequence-distribution
Howard M Colquhoun*, Zhixue Zhu, William A Mortimore, Nadia M Walsby and David Thompsett
University of Reading, UK
Development of innovative proton conducting materials for Polymer Electrolyte Membrane and Solid Oxide Fuel Cells
Silvia Licoccia* and Enrico Traversa
University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy
High throughput synthesis and screening of hydrogen storage and fuel cell catalyst materials
Karen M Brace, Samuel Guerin, Xingyuan Guo, Brian E Hayden*, Christopher E Lee, Thierry Le Gall, Duncan C A Smith, John Tetteh and Audrey Vecoven
University of Southampton, UK
Proton-conducting membranes based on polysulfones carrying sulfonated and phosphonated aromatic side chains
Patric Jannasch* and Benoit Lafitte
Lund University, Sweden
Session: Materials for Sustainable Energy: Fuel Cells, Hydrogen Generation and Storage (ii) - Thursday 5 July (am)
Keynote: Hydrogen storage materials: potentials and limitations
Andreas Zuettel
Universitat Fribourg, Switzerland
Electronic structure and stability of lithium aluminium and lithium nitrogen hydrides for hydrogen storage applications
Y Song* and Z X Guo
Harbin Institute of Technology at Weihai, China
Gas sorption in porous metalocarboxylates
Christian Serre*, Michel Latroche, Philip Llewellyn, Sandrine Bourrelly, Franck Millange, Jong-San Chang, Sung-Hwa Jhung, Alexandre Vimont, Marco Daturi and Gérard Férey
Université de Versailles St Quentin en Yvelines, France
The grand challenge of hydrogen storage
Peter P Edwards*, Martin Owen Jones and W I F David
University of Oxford, UK
Towards polymer-based hydrogen storage materials
Neil B McKeown*, Bader Ghanem, Mariolina Carta, Kadhum J Msayib, Peter M Budd, James Selbie, David Book and Allan Walton
Cardiff University, UK
High H2 adsorption by co-ordination framework materials
Xiang Lin, Junhua Jia, Alexander J Blake, Neil R Champness, Martin Schröder and Peter Hubberstey*
University of Nottingham, UK
