Effect of model fuel impurities for reformed jet fuels on the hydrogen oxidation at platinum based catalysts under HT-PEMFC conditions

Jet fuels like the commercial Jet-A and Jet-A1 fuels or the military JP-8 fuels have a high importance for many applications. Currently their replacement by biomass derived drop-in fuels is under investigation. As those exhibit much lower contents of impurities, the question was if fuel cells could benefit from this replacement. To answer this question the effect of H2S and CO on the hydrogen oxidation at platinum based catalyst under HT-PEMFC conditions was reviewed and the effect of further relevant impurities in particular ethene, toluene and thiophene investigated on catalyst and partially on single cell level. It could be shown that Pt catalyst under HT-PEMFC conditions exhibit a significant tolerance towards all these impurities. Furthermore, using our recently developed HT-DEMS set-up, it was shown that thiophene which was added with toluene to a fuel stream can be oxidized at the Pt catalyst under HT-PEMFC conditions.