Development of a novel cost effective methanol electrolyzer stack with Pt-catalyzed membrane

This paper demonstrates a novel polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) based methanol electrolyzer stack with a catalyzed membrane for hydrogen production. The physical and electrochemical properties of the catalyzed membrane, single cell and stack are examined using various characterization techniques, such as X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy with EDX and polarization studies. The results demonstrate that the with Pt-catalyzed membrane electrode assembly (MEA) exhibits significantly better performance than a normal MEA. The developed electrolyzer stack produces 102 L h(-1) of 99% pure hydrogen without CO and CO2. The excellent stability of the PEM methanol electrolyzer system is demonstrated by running the stack for 2500 h of intermittent operation with constant current density. (c) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.