A review on bipolar membrane-based fuel cell fabrication processes and characterization techniques: an integrated approach

Bipolar Membrane Fuel cells (BPMFC) have emerged as an important device for reliable power generation with added advantages of water management and self-humidification. The field is actively engaged with first major study appearing in 2009 and has since developed along various themes including fabricating novel membrane electrode assemblies (MEA), potential of new fuels, bipolar membrane (BPM), ionomer and catalyst development etc. This review attempts to present these in a comprehensive and unified manner with duly highlighting critical aspects. It describes the flow of entire MEA development focusing on the intricacies and missing links present in the literature accompanied with the updated analysis of nearly all the major BPMFC configurations. After tracing the MEA and BPMFC development; various kinetics, interface design and resistance issues are dealt with in detail. Illustrative schematics, trends have been included which describe the important aspects of BPMFC nature, design, operation and model-based behaviour. Separate section on durability/stability containing cruciality of non-PGM based novel catalysts is included. The novel feature is the establishment of the interrelationships, through dependency charts, among varied and numerous issues. Detailed evaluation of the state of research is carried out to gain understanding of key themes for future research in the field.