Toward practical applications in proton exchange membrane fuel cells with gram-scale PGM-free catalysts

Platinum has been considered as an essential element in both the cathode and anode catalyst in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC). However, with the increasing capacity of PEMFC industry in both transportation and stationary applications, the demand for platinum increases rapidly. From the standpoint of scarcity and cost, developing platinum group metal free (PGM-free) catalyst is rewarding. In this work, we prepared highly active material with secondary nitrogen doping, and were able to scale up material synthesis from milligram scale to gram scale with the high activity well maintained. The scale up catalyst SU-PAU was evaluated in 50 cm2 MEAs with comprehensive operating and design parameter optimization. The state of art 670 mW/cm2 peak power density was achieved under H2-Air operation, with the air partial pressure of 1 bar.

Automated summary

This paper highlights the importance of platinum as well as platinum group metal free catalyst in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC) and the increasing demand for such catalysts. The authors successfully synthesized highly active materials with secondary nitrogen doping and scaled up the synthesis process, achieving high power density.