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Analysis of structure, reaction and mass transfer in the MEA materials

Koizumi, Satoshi; Yamaguchi, Daisuke; Putra, A.

In order to perform a multi-scale observation on a membrane-electrolyte assembly (MEA) of polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC), small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) has been reinforced by advanced neutron optics. A focusing ultra-small-angle scattering method was developed by using a neutron lens, which is made of a single crystal MgF$$_2$$. By combining a double crystal (Bonse-Hart) method, we are able to reach to 10 $$mu$$m length scale, which corresponds to the size of aggregation by carbon powders in an electrode layer. Polarization analysis enables us to selectively remove incoherent scattering from hydrogen atoms and to detect coherent scattering due to ion-cluster of polymer electrolyte (Nafion) and water distribution in it. In order to output structural information in real space, we examined our SANS results by comparing images in real space obtained by low vacuum SEM and multi-scale computer simulations. This year we have achieved the following tree topics: (1) Elucidation of the detailed structure consisting of nano-scale phase separated domains and ion clusters in the block copolymer type model polymer electrolytes by SANS. (2) Advanced observation for the signal originated from ion cluster in Nafion membrane on SANS profile. (3) Determination of the cluster size of water within the catalyst layer of model MEA. To detect the faint signal from the cluster of water residing in the catalyst layer we utilized various experimental techniques.

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