TY - JOUR
T1 - Highly stable precious metal-free cathode catalyst for fuel cell application
AU - Serov, Alexey
AU - Workman, Michael J.
AU - Artyushkova, Kateryna
AU - Atanassov, Plamen
AU - McCool, Geoffrey
AU - McKinney, Sam
AU - Romero, Henry
AU - Halevi, Barr
AU - Stephenson, Thomas
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2016/9/30
Y1 - 2016/9/30
N2 - A platinum group metal-free (PGM-free) oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalyst engineered for stability has been synthesized using the sacrificial support method (SSM). This catalyst was comprehensively characterized by physiochemical analyses and tested for performance and durability in fuel cell membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs). This catalyst, belonging to the family of Fe-N-C materials, is easily scalable and can be manufactured in batches up to 200 g. The fuel cell durability tests were performed in a single cell configuration at realistic operating conditions of 0.65 V, 1.25 atmgauge air, and 90% RH for 100 h. In-depth characterization of surface chemistry and morphology of the catalyst layer before and after durability tests were performed. The failure modes of the PGM-free electrodes were derived from structure-to-property correlations. It is suggested that under constant voltage operation, the performance loss results from degradation of the electrode pore structure, while under carbon corrosion accelerated test protocols the failure mode is catalyst corrosion.
AB - A platinum group metal-free (PGM-free) oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalyst engineered for stability has been synthesized using the sacrificial support method (SSM). This catalyst was comprehensively characterized by physiochemical analyses and tested for performance and durability in fuel cell membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs). This catalyst, belonging to the family of Fe-N-C materials, is easily scalable and can be manufactured in batches up to 200 g. The fuel cell durability tests were performed in a single cell configuration at realistic operating conditions of 0.65 V, 1.25 atmgauge air, and 90% RH for 100 h. In-depth characterization of surface chemistry and morphology of the catalyst layer before and after durability tests were performed. The failure modes of the PGM-free electrodes were derived from structure-to-property correlations. It is suggested that under constant voltage operation, the performance loss results from degradation of the electrode pore structure, while under carbon corrosion accelerated test protocols the failure mode is catalyst corrosion.
KW - FIB-SEM
KW - Fuel cell testing
KW - PGM-free
KW - Post-mortem analysis
KW - XPS
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84979942184&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2016.07.087
DO - 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2016.07.087
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84979942184
SN - 0378-7753
VL - 327
SP - 557
EP - 564
JO - Journal of Power Sources
JF - Journal of Power Sources
ER -