Tolerance of non-platinum group metals cathodes proton exchange membrane fuel cells to air contaminants

Tatyana Reshetenko, Alexey Serov, Kateryna Artyushkova, Ivana Matanovic, Sarah Stariha, Plamen Atanassov

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

40 Scopus citations

Abstract

The effects of major airborne contaminants (SO2, NO2 and CO) on the spatial performance of Fe/N/C cathode membrane electrode assemblies were studied using a segmented cell system. The injection of 2-10 ppm SO2 in air stream did not cause any performance decrease and redistribution of local currents due to the lack of stably adsorbed SO2 molecules on Fe-Nx sites, as confirmed by density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The introduction of 5-20 ppm of CO into the air stream also did not affect fuel cell performance. The exposure of Fe/N/C cathodes to 2 and 10 ppm NO2 resulted in performance losses of 30 and 70-75 mV, respectively. DFT results showed that the adsorption energies of NO2 and NO were greater than that of O2, which accounted for the observed voltage decrease and slight current redistribution. The cell performance partially recovered when the NO2 injection was stopped. The long-term operation of the fuel cells resulted in cell performance degradation. XPS analyses of Fe/N/C electrodes revealed that the performance decrease was due to catalyst degradation and ionomer oxidation. The latter was accelerated in the presence of air contaminants. The details of the spatial performance and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy results are presented and discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)556-571
Number of pages16
JournalJournal of Power Sources
Volume324
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 30 2016
Externally publishedYes

Funding

Computational work was performed using the computational resources of EMSL, a national scientific user facility sponsored by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research of the Department of Energy located at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (award number 48823); NERSC, supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231; and CNMS, sponsored at Oak Ridge National Laboratory by the Scientific User Facilities Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy (award CNMS2015-027). This work was supported in part by the DOE-EERE Fuel Cell Technology Program FC132 (subcontract to Northeastern University, with PI Sanjeev Mukerjee). T. Reshetenko is grateful for the funding from the Office of Naval Research (N00014-11-1-0391) and the Hawaiian Electric Company for their ongoing support of the Hawaii Sustainable Energy Research Facility. This paper has been designated LA-UR-15-29303.

Keywords

  • Airborne contaminants
  • DFT
  • Non-platinum group metals catalysts
  • PEMFC
  • Segmented cell
  • XPS

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Tolerance of non-platinum group metals cathodes proton exchange membrane fuel cells to air contaminants'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this