(523e) Development of Cell Reversal Tolerant Anode Catalysts for Automotive Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell

Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) have been considered as an attractive next-generation automobile due to high energy density, high-efficiency, and zero-emission features. Despite many advantages of FCEV, there are several issues to overcome for the wide penetration into automobile market of FCEV such as stability and cost of fuel cell systems. In particular, during FCEVs’ driving, the various transient conditions cause hydrogen fuel starvation, leading to cell reversal voltage on the anode [1]. To mitigate the fatal degradation of the electrode, materials based approaches including an oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalyst, oxidation resistant support, functional additive and higher binder loading in the catalyst layer has been pursued [2-4]. Recently, application of OER catalyst has been reporting as an effective way for the reversal tolerant anode (RTA) strategy. In this presentation, the development of non-Pt composition (IrRu) for the anode catalyst having multiple functions for the OER and hydrogen oxidation reaction will be discussed [5]. IrRu supported catalyst (IrRu/C) showed significantly improved stability under cell reversal condition compared to the commercial Pt/C catalyst. And then, the stability and activity of IrRu alloy catalyst towards OER using different carbon supports will be presented. A heteroatom (N or S) doped ordered mesoporous carbon (OMC) supports (N- or S-OMC) were employed as supports for increasing the stability by strong metal-support interaction.

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