One question about solid state fuel cell: Can the van der waals heterostructure be used as electrolyte of fuel cell? In other words, van der waals heterostructure is impermeable or permeable to proton or Oxygen ion?
Most of the vdw heterostructures published right now are made up of graphene, MoS2, MoSe2 and similar electronically conducting or semi-conducting elements. Electrolytes in batteries and fuel cells must be electronic insulators, and these materials are therefore not suited as electrolytes.
One could however imagine heterostructures built up of clay-like sheets (aluminium silicate single sheets) interspersed with polymer or hydroxide layers that would facilitate proton or oxygen ion movement. As these are two-dimensional materials, it will be a challenge to orient the material in a way so transmembrane conductivity is optimised
Keld, thanks for your enlightened answer. May i also want to know the thermal conductivity of heterostructures assembled by clay-like sheets. They are high or low heat conductivity through cross-plane? Recently i am considering combining thermoelectric generation and fuel cell into a novel energy converter, in which the thermoelectric converter will be used as electrode of fuel cell. I think this novel device can enable the solution of fuel cell suffering from high temperature operation.
Because, the known two dimensional material WS2 has lowest thermal conductivity of about 0.05 w/m/k (Ultralow thermal conductivity in disordered, layered WSe2 crystals, cience 19 January 2007: Vol. 315 no. 5810 pp. 351-353 ), which is one order smaller than any other materials of wellknown materials. The ultralow thermal conductivity can give high efficiency of heat to electricity conversion. I just searched your record track of publication. You are working on battery, so are you interested in studying the combination of fuel cell and thermoelectric converter?
I'm sorry. I had to give up battery research around year 2000 as our possibilities to get funding dried out. My last job was as lab manager in a geology/geochemistry group, and now I'm retired, so my possibility to do research relevant for your endeavour is zero.
But your ideas are interesting, and I wish you the best.
Anyway, i still appreciate your suggestions and comments. Wish you a good healthy body and everything goes well.
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