Development of new alcohol tolerant Pd-alloys cathodes for direct alcohol PEM fuel cells

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We intend to develop new class of Membrane Electrode Assembly (MEA) for direct alcohol (methanol and ethanol) fuel cells (DAFC) based for the first time on two new concepts or directions: i) high tolerant alcohol cathodes based on Pd-alloy catalysts supported on carbon powder; ii) MEA of these catalysts which will be prepared from catalyzed electrode fabricated from direct deposition of the supported catalysts on the gas diffusion layer in the same furnace as the catalyst preparation. This is the first time that supported catalyst can be deposited directly on gas diffusion layer during the catalyst fabrication. Such fuel cells would be used for mobile, transportation or residential) applications. This project is highly original and novel because it is the first time that: i) direct alcohol (methanol and ethanol) fuel cell will be developed using high tolerant alcoholcathodes based on Pd-alloy catalysts supported on carbon; ii) MEA of these catalysts will be prepared using catalyzed electrodes fabricated from direct deposition of the supported catalysts on the carbon cloth or paper in the same furnace as the catalyst preparation. The keys to the success of this project will lie in finding ways of the fabrication of MEA based of optimised carbon supported Pd-alloys cathodes and Nafion® 117 to be effective for the structure of DAFC. Our strategies therefore, are to develop Pd-Co, Pd-Ni, Pd-Cr and Pd-Fe cathode and Pt-Ru anode catalysts on carbon support in a vertical furnace (homemade in our laboratory).The optimisation of the catalyst preparations and their deposition to get catalyzed electrodes for MEA of 6.25 cm2 will be done by considering the following parameters of its performance in a single DEFC hardware: i) open circuit voltage of 1.0 Volt (in comparison of an average of 0.6 Volt with the current technology); ii) improvethe single cell operating potential by (at least) 200 mV in comparison to those of the current technology for the same current density;iii) Analysis of the results on MEA performances and assessment of progress towards classical state-of-the-art results obtained on a standard single cell.