PFI-RP: Commercializing Active and Durable Materials and Electrodes for Fuel Cell and Electrolyzer Applications

这一创新-研究伙伴关系(PFI-RP)项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力在于解决了两种最有前途的可持续和清洁发电技术--电解槽和燃料电池--对成本效益高、大批量制造耐用电极的迫切需求。目前旨在降低对特殊化学品(催化剂)的需求和提高耐用性的低容量电极优化过程既昂贵又缓慢，阻碍了这些重要技术的商业化。如果成功，该项目将能够扩大新型催化剂的生产，并将对催化剂性能、电极制造工艺和性能之间的相关性建立亟需的科学理解。因此，本项目有望为新型催化剂和电极的设计提供明确的指导。学术界、工业界和国家可再生能源实验室专家之间的多学科合作伙伴关系将致力于将燃料电池和电解槽推向下一阶段的大规模生产。总体而言，该项目有望实现清洁能源技术的商业化，有利于环境和美国经济。拟议的项目旨在建立：1)扩大规模的方法，以制造一种新型的、内部开发的催化剂，具有可调性能、增强的性能和耐用性，以及2)结构-性能-工艺-性能(SPPP)关系，适用于各种催化剂/墨水/电极制造方法，使快速过渡到具有成本效益的大规模制造燃料电池和电解槽电极，使这些技术更接近商业化。尽管对这些技术进行了大量投资和日益增长的兴趣，但由于目前使用的催化剂成本高、耐用性低，以及制造速度慢且成本高的小批量部件，阻碍了这些技术的商业化。为了应对这些挑战，该项目将使用先进的催化剂/墨水/电极表征方法来研究一些可扩展的墨水/电极制造方法，为结构-性能-工艺-性能关联提供一个大的参数矩阵。参数矩阵和已建立的相关性将有助于未来的催化剂和电极设计，并使之能够从目前耗时且成本高昂的增量低规模工艺快速过渡到简化和先进的放大方法。预期的技术成果包括：1)交付25G批次的规模化生产的新型催化剂；2)确定SPPP相关性；3)由工业合作伙伴验证团队发现的有效技术转让；以及4)向社区传播项目衍生的建议/协议，以促进未来创新的部署。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Research Partnerships (PFI-RP) project is in addressing the urgent need for cost-effective, high-volume fabrication of durable electrodes for two of the most promising sustainable and clean power generation technologies, electrolyzers and fuel cells. Current low-volume electrode optimization processes, aimed at lowering the need for special chemicals (catalysts) and improving durability, are costly and slow, hindering the commercialization of these important technologies. If successful, the project will enable scaling up the production of a novel catalyst and will establish highly needed scientific understanding of the correlations between catalyst properties, electrode fabrication processes and performance. Therefore, this project is expected to provide clear guidance for the design of novel catalysts and electrodes. The multidisciplinary partnership between academic, industrial and National Renewable Energy Laboratory experts will work towards moving fuel cell and electrolyzers to the next level of high-scale production. Overall, the project is expected to enable the commercialization of clean energy technologies, benefit the environment and the US economy.The proposed project aims to establish: 1) scale-up approaches to fabricate a novel, internally developed catalyst, with tunable properties and enhanced performance and durability, and 2) structure-property-process-performance (SPPP) correlations applicable to a wide range of catalysts/ink/electrode fabrication methods to enable fast transition to cost-effective scaled-up fabrication of fuel cell and electrolyzer electrodes, bringing these technologies closer to commercialization. Despite large investments and growing interest in these technologies, their commercialization is hindered by high cost and low durability of currently employed catalysts, and by slow and costly low-volume components fabrication. To address these challenges, the project will investigate a number of scalable ink/electrode fabrication approaches using advanced catalyst/ink/electrode characterization methods, providing a large parameter matrix for structure-property-process-performance correlations. The parameter matrix and established correlations will aid future catalyst/ and electrode design and enable fast transition from the current time-consuming and costly incremental low-scale process, to a streamlined and advanced scale-up approach. The anticipated technical results include: 1) delivery of 25g batches of novel catalyst produced at scale; 2) identification of SPPP correlations; 3) validation of team findings by industrial partner for effective technology transfer, and 4) dissemination of recommendations/protocols derived from the project to the community to promote deployment of future innovations.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.