"Recent Development of Electrocatalysts for Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology"
Electrocatalysts play an important role in hydrogen technology and are used to overcome the sluggish kinetics in both oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), which takes place in hydrogen-powered fuel cells, and oxygen evolution reaction (OER), which is involved in electrolyzers for the generation of hydrogen for water splitting. In this presentation, I will present our recent efforts in addressing some of the scientific challenges related to the development of low cost and durable electrocatalyst materials. On ORR electrocatalysts, I will cover the design strategy for making low- and non-platinum group metal (PGM) electrocatalysts in the following areas: 1) quantitative analysis of the formation of well-defined Pt metal and alloy nanoparticle catalysts, including the use of in situ techniques; 2) development of Pt-containing intermetallics for enhanced catalyst durability; and 3) single atom non-PGM electrocatalysts derived from metal organic framework (MOF). On OER electrocatalysts, I will focus on using functional metal oxides, perovskite and pyrochlore types in particular, for improving the catalytic performance under acidic conditions. Besides sharing many of the common features with thermal catalysts, electrocatalysts require additional consideration in material design and system engineering; thus both experimental study and theoretical simulation become essential for these technological developments.
