New strategy for reversal tolerant anode for automotive polymer electrolyte fuel cell

Since the commercialization of the fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs), the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell system has been actively improved as a powertrain for ultimate environment-friendly vehicle. During the FCEV operation, various transient conditions such as start-up/shut-down and fuel starvation occur irregularly, which deteriorates the durability of the membrane electrode assembly. In particular, when fuel starvation occurs, the carbon support in the anode is oxidized within few minutes, thus the mitigation of this phenomenon is essential for securing the durability. This short review introduces the concept of reversal tolerant anode (RTA), which is a mitigation method using an oxygen evolution catalyst and reviews some previous reports. In addition, new approach for RTA suggested by authors recently, which is the replacement of Pt anode catalyst by multifunctional IrRu alloy catalyst that simultaneously exhibits the activities for the hydrogen oxidation reaction and the oxygen evolution reaction is introduced.

Multifunctional Ir–Ru alloy catalysts for reversal-tolerant anodes of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells

To address the problem of fuel starvation in fuel-cell electric vehicles,which causes cell voltage reversal and results in cell failure when repeated continuously,we developed a reversal-tolerant anode(RTA) to promote water oxidation in preference to carbon corrosion.Graphitized carbon-supported Ir-Ru alloys with different compositions are employed as RTA catalysts in an acidic polyol solution and are shown to exhibit composition-dependent average crystallite sizes of <5.33 nm.The adopted approach allows the generation of relatively well-dispersed Ir-Ru alloy nanoparticles on the carbon support without severe agglomeration.The activity of IrRu_(2)/C for the hydrogen oxidation reaction is 1.10 times that of the stateof-the-art Pt/C catalyst.Cell reversal testing by simulation of fuel starvation reveals that the durability of IrRu_(2)/C(~7 h) significantly exceeds that of the conventional Pt/C catalyst(~10 min) and is the highest value reported so far.Thus,the developed Ir-Ru alloy catalyst can be used to fabricate practical RTAs and replace Pt catalysts in the anodes of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells.