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

该创新-研究伙伴关系（PFI-RP）项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是解决两种最有前途的可持续和清洁发电技术，电解槽和燃料电池的耐用电极的成本效益，大批量制造的迫切需要。目前旨在降低对特殊化学品（催化剂）的需求并提高耐用性的小批量电极优化工艺成本高且速度慢，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规模，并将建立对催化剂性能，电极制造工艺和性能之间相互关系的高度必要的科学理解。因此，该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个大规模生产水平。总的来说，该项目预计将使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）规模扩大方法，以制造新型的、内部开发的催化剂，其具有可调的性质和增强的性能和耐久性，和2）结构-性质-工艺-性能（SPPP）相关性，其适用于广泛的催化剂/油墨/电极制造方法，以实现向成本-性能的快速转变。燃料电池和电解槽电极的有效放大制造，使这些技术更接近商业化。尽管对这些技术进行了大量的投资和日益增长的兴趣，但它们的商业化受到目前使用的催化剂的高成本和低耐久性以及缓慢和昂贵的小批量组件制造的阻碍。为了应对这些挑战，该项目将使用先进的催化剂/油墨/电极表征方法研究许多可扩展的油墨/电极制造方法，为结构-性能-工艺-性能相关性提供大型参数矩阵。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，并实现从当前耗时且昂贵的增量小规模工艺到简化且先进的放大方法的快速过渡。预期的技术结果包括：1）交付25克批量的规模生产的新型催化剂; 2）确定SPPP相关性; 3）由工业伙伴验证小组的研究结果，以实现有效的技术转让，和4）传播建议/该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得的。通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来提供支持。

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.