Sustainable Catalysts for Alkaline Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells

Alkaline exchange membrane fuel cells (AEMFCs) have received significant interest in recent years, because this technology has the potential of overcoming cost barriers of polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEMFCs), as the basic environment of the anion exchange membranes allows the use of less expensive electrocatalysts and low-cost metal hardware.

Investigation of the hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR) in alkaline media has been pursued in the past few years side by side with the development of AEMFCs. We have developed the best liquid electrolyte-free AEMFC performance reported so far, especially for a platinum-free catalyst.[1,2] The catalysts are synthesized through novel synthetic approaches to allow the control at the nanoscale (illustration below). [3,4]

[1] Pd/Ni Synergestic Activity for Hydrogen Oxidation Reaction in Alkaline Conditions Istvan Bakos, Andras Paszternak, David Zitoun Electrochimica Acta, 2015, 176, 1074-1082

[2] Palladium/Nickel Bifunctional Electrocatalyst for Hydrogen Oxidation Reaction in Alkaline Membrane Fuel Cell Masha Alesker, Miles Page, Meital Shviro, Gregory Gershinsky, Yair Paska, Dario Dekel, David Zitoun Journal of Power Sources 2016, 304, 332-339

[3] Tip enhanced Silver Growth on Shaped Controlled Nickel Nanocrystals M. Shviro and D. Zitoun J. Phys. Chem. C 2014, 118, 10455

[4] Hollow Octahedral and Cuboctahedral Nanocrystals of Ternary Pt-Ni-Au Alloys Meital Shviro, Shlomi Polani, David Zitoun Nanoscale, 2015, 7, 13521