LOW-TEMPERATURE FUEL CELL WITH HYBRID MEMBRANE AND METHOD FOR PRODUCING THE HYBRID MEMBRANE

摘要

Low-temperature fuel cells serving for directly generating electricity and offering a high degree of efficiency are particularly useful for mobile applications due to their high availability. According to the invention, a proton-conducting membrane, serving as electrolyte, splits off the protons from the fuels so that said protons can pass through the membrane. A conventional hybrid membrane features a matrix material, to which is added a channel-forming protein by incorporating complete microorganisms, thus improving proton conduction. However, the proton channels formed in such a way are not continuous and have a relatively low long-term stability. In order to eliminate these drawbacks, the inventive low-temperature fuel cell comprises a hybrid membrane with a support film having continuous pores, said pores being filled with an inert support material, to which individual amino acids, amino acid mixtures or amino acid compounds are adsorbed. A continuous artificial channel structure based on nanotechnology and simple-structured amino acid components, is thus obtained. Non-protonated polymer films which have been made porous by, for example, ionic bombardment, can be used, wherein the pores of said films may be filled by means of a pressure filtration process with, preferably, nanoparticles as support material and amino acids, as for example, aspartic acid or L-lysine. Maximum performance is achieved by optimizing the parameters involved.