Development of Novel Ternary Non-Pt Alloy Catalyst for Oxygen Evolution Reaction

Abstract

Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) have attracted increasing interest as promising powertrain for zero-emission vehicles because of their high energy density, high conversion efficiency, and zero greenhouse gases emission [1,2]. However, there are still two challenges such as cost and durability for wide commercialization of fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) because startup/shutdown (SU/SD) and cell reversal (CR) phenomena occur approximately 5,000 and 200 times, respectively, during the lifetime operation of FCEV [3]. The cell reversal voltage in the anode is caused by hydrogen fuel starvation, which comes from the various transient conditions that lead to the fatal cell failure in a few minutes [4]. To mitigate the detrimental degradation of the electrode, two primary approaches have been investigated. The first strategy is a system level control which interferes with the operation of the fuel cell stack and challenges the reliability of the operations. The second one is materials based solutions including a oxygen evolution reaction (OER) favorable catalysts, oxidation resistant supports, functional additives and higher binder loading within the catalyst layer. Recently, application of OER catalyst has been reported as an effective solution for reversal tolerant anode (RTA) [4,5].