Non-noble metal-based nano wire networks as novel support-less catalyst structures in alkaline fuel cells

近年来，稳定的阴离子交换膜的发展使得碱性燃料电池越来越受到关注。由于腐蚀性降低，碱性系统能够使用更便宜的非贵金属催化剂。使用具有成本效益的金属，例如镍，甚至可以应用不支撑在高表面积材料上的块状结构。本项目的重点是使用离子径迹蚀刻的聚碳酸酯箔作为硬模板合成无支撑、三维、非贵金属基结构，及其在碱性燃料电池中的应用。Ni和Ni-Pd纳米线网络充当模型系统，其可以系统地变化并作为模型电极实施到具有阴离子交换膜的燃料电池中。与商业应用的催化剂相比，由此制备的3D结构是明确定义的，可以在广泛的参数范围内定制，因此也可用于非常基础的研究。未来仅应用廉价的非贵金属使得能够使用本体无载体电催化剂，从而使它们也成为商业应用的可行替代品。因此，不仅系统的结构-活性相关性将被调查，但也将进行实验，在低温燃料电池与碱性膜的长期稳定性，以证明这些新的结构的适用性。

The development of stable anion exchange membranes made alkaline fuel cells increasingly attractive in recent years. Due to decreased corrosivity, alkaline systems enable the use of less expensive non-noble catalysts. Using cost-efficient metals, such as nickel, it is even possible to apply bulk structures, which are not supported on a high-surface area material. The focus of this project is on the synthesis of support-less, three-dimensional, non-noble metal based structures using ion-track etched polycarbonate foils as hard templates, and their application in alkaline fuel cells. Ni and Ni-Pd nanowire networks serve as model systems, which can be systematically varied and implemented as a model electrode into a fuel cell with anion-exchange membrane. In contrast to the commercially-applied catalysts, the thus prepared 3D structures are well-defined, can be tailor-made over a wide range of parameters and therefore also used for very fundamental investigations. Applying only cheap non-noble metals in the future enables the use of bulk unsupported electrocatalysts, thus making them a viable alternative also for commercial application. Therefore, not only systematic structure-activity correlations will be investigated, but also experiments with respect to long-term stability in low-temperature fuel cells with alkaline membrane will be performed in order to demonstrate the applicability of these novel structures.