Kinetics, stoichiometry and product distributions of electrode reactions at novel electrocatalytic materials

这项研究计划将提供知识和先进材料，使生物燃料(如乙醇、甘油)和废弃生物质热解产生的燃料能够高效地产生电化学能量。目前，使用这些燃料的燃料电池效率太低，无法进行重大的商业开发，这主要是因为可用的阳极催化剂活性较低，以及产生部分氧化产物(副产品)。直接由生物燃料驱动的燃料电池的发展需要新的电催化材料来提供高功率和高效率。这些材料将通过结合文献中的不同方法和新的方法来设计和合成，以产生创新的多功能材料。因此，各种金属氧化物将被用来支撑基于铂的催化纳米颗粒，并控制它们在导致燃料完全和部分氧化的途径中的活性。此外，金属纳米颗粒的结构和组成将发生变化，以优化功率和效率。改进和新的实验方法将被用来将基础研究积累的丰富知识，在环境条件下的液体电解液中，与具有聚合物电解质的燃料电池中更高的温度和压力以及流动条件相联系。通过这种方式，将有可能将这项研究的发现迅速转移到最终用户手中。这将促进乙醇燃料电池的开发，使其能够与基于化石燃料的技术竞争，并使更复杂的生物燃料得以使用。主要的长期目标是将直接乙醇燃料电池的效率提高到50%，这将使它们成为内燃机作为汽车低碳动力源的最佳替代品之一。结果将解决加拿大在清洁能源和能源效率的新材料方面的研究重点，对加拿大的能源行业非常重要，并提供重要的环境和经济利益，同时培训高素质的人员以利用这些机会。

This research program will provide knowledge and advanced materials that will enable efficient electrochemical energy production from biofuels such as ethanol, glycerol and fuels produced by the pyrolysis of waste biomass. Currently, fuel cells operated with these fuels are too inefficient for significant commercial development, due primarily to the low activities of the anode catalysts that are available, and the production of partial oxidation products (byproducts). Advances in the development of fuel cells powered directly by biofuels require new electrocatalytic materials that provide high power and high efficiencies. These will be designed and synthesized by combining different methods from the literature, and new approaches, to produce innovative multifunctional materials. Thus, a variety of metal oxides will be used to support platinum based catalytic nanoparticles, and control their activities for the pathways leading to complete and partial oxidation of the fuel. In addition, the structures and compositions of the metal nanoparticles will be varied to optimize power and efficiency. Improved and new experimental methods will be used to relate the wealth of knowledge that has been accumulated from fundamental studies, in liquid electrolytes under ambient conditions, to the higher temperature and pressure, flow conditions in a fuel cell with a polymer electrolyte. In this way, it will become possible to rapidly transfer discoveries from this research to end users. This will facilitate the development of ethanol fuel cells that are competitive with technologies based on fossil fuels, and enable the use of more complex biofuels. The primary long term objective is to increase the efficiencies of direct ethanol fuel cells to 50%, which will make them one of the best alternatives to internal combustion engines as low carbon power sources for vehicles. The results will address Canada's research priority in new materials for clean energy and energy efficiency, be important to the energy industry in Canada, and provide important environmental and financial benefits, while training highly qualified personnel to exploit these opportunities.