GOALI: One Step Direct Deposition of Durable Cathode for High Temperature Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC)

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This Grant Opportunity for Academic Liaison with Industry (GOALI) award will enable scientific inquiry and realization of innovative manufacturing methods to deposit new catalyst and electrode structures onto high temperature proton exchange membranes. The approach taken in this work will allow for independent control over compositional and structural parameters in a single flame-based reactive spray deposition step, significantly reducing the number of manufacturing steps that are required with traditional processes. This will enable high performing proton exchange membrane fuel cells to be produced at low manufacturing cost. In this work, the team will quantify the impact of processing conditions on the catalyst and electrode structure, and will use this information to discover the fundamental limits to which processing can push activity. To accomplish this, the team will study the influence of processing parameters on particle formation, catalyst utilization and morphology. Additionally, the influence of the support and electrode layer thickness on catalyst utilization and durability will be studied. Electrochemical characterization of the high surface area catalysts will be performed on three levels: catalyst, ex-situ electrodes, and in-situ electrodes. This information will be used to study the electrochemical Thiele modulus as a design tool for oxygen reduction electrocatalysts. Educationally, this grant will provide high school students and teachers as well as undergraduate and graduate students with hands-on experience and training in the fields of sustainable energy, manufacturing and electrochemical engineering. The grant will also provide opportunities for student internships in industry with the industrial partner Sonalysts. If successful, the results of this research will lead to improvements in the electrochemical activity and catalyst utilization of commercial-scale electrodes. This research will also provide critical structure-property information for the rational design of next-generation structures. This research will also focus on bridging laboratory-scale discovery and large scale catalyst nanomanufacturing, allowing for rapid implementation by our industrial partner, Sonalysts. Implementation and scale-up of the structure-property information will further reduce the cost and improve the performance stability of electroactive materials in several platforms. Immediate commercial derivatives of the proposed project include: a novel, scalable catalyst synthesis process; formulations for high temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells; and hybrid fuel-cell battery submersibles. Although this project is focused on fuel cells, the results can be implemented toward batteries, sensors and catalysts in general.