Alkaline polymer electrolyte fuel cells: Principle, challenges, and recent progress

Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) have been recognized as a significant power source in future energy systems based on hydrogen. The current PEMFC technology features the employment of acidic polymer electrolytes which, albeit superior to electrolyte solutions, have intrinsically limited the catalysts to noble metals, fundamentally preventing PEMFC from widespread deployment. An effective solution to this problem is to develop fuel cells based on alkaline polymer electrolytes (APEFC), which not only enable the use of non-precious metal catalysts but also avoid the carbonate-precipitate issue which has been troubling the conventional alkaline fuel cells (AFC). This feature article introduces the principle of APEFC, the challenges, and our research progress, and focuses on strategies for developing key materials, including high-performance alkaline polyelectrolytes and stable non-precious metal catalysts. For alkaline polymer electrolytes, high ionic conductivity and satisfactory mechanical property are difficult to be balanced, therefore polymer cross-linking is an ultimate strategy. For non-precious metal catalysts, it is urgent to improve the catalytic activity and stability. New materials, such as transition-metal complexes, nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes, and metal carbides, would become applicable in APEFC.