The purpose of this study is to find an optimal mixture ratio of the platinum-loaded carbon catalyst and the electrolyte in a membrane electrode assembly (MEA) of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell for reducing the activation resistance, which influences the electrochemical surface area, activation polarization, and maximum power density of the MEA. First, mixture ratios of 10, 20, 40, and 60 wt% platinum-loaded carbon catalysts and electrolyte were examined. The results indicated that the fuel cell performance improved for mixing weight ratios of 1.0:2.0 in 10 wt% Pt/C, 1.0:1.8 in 20 wt% Pt/C, 1.0:1.1 in 40 wt% Pt/C, and 1.0:0.5 in 60 wt% Pt/C. Next, we evaluated the activation resistances of the MEA from the AC impedance characteristics using the optimal mixing weight ratio of the platinum-loaded carbon catalyst and the electrolyte. It was found that the activation resistances of the anode and cathode decrease with an increase in the weight ratio of platinum-loaded carbon in the catalyst layer. 相似文献
To further determine the fouling behavior of bovine serum albumin (BSA) on different hydrophilic PVDF ultrafiltration (UF) membranes over a range of pH values, self-made atomic force microscopy (AFM) colloidal probes were used to detect the adhesion forces of membrane–BSA and BSA–BSA, respectively. Results showed that the membrane–BSA adhesion interaction was stronger than the BSA–BSA adhesion interaction, and the adhesion force between BSA–BSA-fouled PVDF/PVA membranes was similar to that between BSA–BSA-fouled PVDF/PVP membranes, which indicated that the fouling was mainly caused by the adhesion interaction between membrane and BSA. At the same pH condition, the PVDF/PVA membrane–BSA adhesion force was smaller than that of PVDF/ PVP membrane–BSA, which illustrated that the more hydrophilic the membrane was, the better antifouling ability it had. The extended Derjaguin–Landau–Verwey–Overbeek (XDLVO) theory predicts that the polar or Lewis acid–base (AB) interaction played a dominant role in the interfacial free energy of membrane–BSA and BSA–BSA that can be affected by pH. For the same membrane, the pH values of a BSA solution can have a significant impact on the process of membrane fouling by changing the AB component of free energy.
C60, as one of carbon nanomaterials widely used in various fields, could be released into the water environment thus exerting some potential health risks to human beings. This work examined the behavior of aqueous stable colloidal nano-C60 (nC60) aggregates under different environmental conditions including Polyethylene glycol octylphenol ether (TX100) micelles concentration, pH, and reaction time when exposed to TX100 micelles. Results show that the nC60 aggregates became more dispersive and restored the capability of generating the singlet oxygen when exposed to TX100 micelles. With the increase of TX100 concentration, smaller average size of nC60 aggregates was observed in dynamic light scattering (DLS) analysis, the fluorescence intensity of TX100 was more quenched by nC60 aggregates, and the kinetic rate constant of generating the singlet oxygen for nC60 aggregates was improved. The mean size of nC60 aggregates in the presence of TX100 had no obvious variations when the pH ranged from 4 to 8. The longer reaction time between nC60 aggregates and TX100 led to a higher kinetic rate constant of generating the singlet oxygen. Collective data suggest that variations in physicochemical properties of nC60 aggregates are strongly dependent on the surrounding media under different environmental conditions and directly govern nC60’s transport behavior and potential toxicity. 相似文献
