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

近年来，稳定阴离子交换膜的发展使碱性燃料电池越来越受到人们的关注。由于腐蚀性降低，碱性体系可以使用较便宜的非贵金属催化剂。使用具有成本效益的金属，如镍，甚至可以应用大块结构，这些结构不支持高表面积材料。该项目的重点是利用离子轨道蚀刻聚碳酸酯箔作为硬模板合成无支撑、三维、非贵金属基结构，并将其应用于碱性燃料电池。Ni和Ni- pd纳米线网络作为模型系统，可以系统地变化并作为模型电极实现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结构定义明确，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。未来只使用廉价的非贵金属就可以使用大块无负载电催化剂，从而使它们成为商业应用的可行选择。因此，不仅要研究系统的结构-活性相关性，而且要进行关于碱性膜低温燃料电池长期稳定性的实验，以证明这些新结构的适用性。

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.