The research leading to these results has received funding from the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen 2 Joint Undertaking under Grant Agreement No 779366 CRESCENDOQ. This Joint Undertaking receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, Hydrogen Europe and

Hydrogen Europe Research. Start date 01/01/2018 End date 31/12/2021. Coordination Deborah Jones, CNRS Montpellier.

CRESCENDO - Critical Raw material Electro-catalystSreplacement ENabling Designed pOst-2020 PEMFC

Can non-PGM catalysts provide competitive fuel cell

performance and cost effective FC catalysis ?

PROJECT STRUCTURE AND OBJECTIVESBACKGROUND

New cathode catalysts, stabilisation approaches

Diagnostic methods to determine active site density and turnover

frequency

Redesign cathode layer construction adapted for

non-PGM catalysts

New CO and thiotolerantanode catalysts

0.42 W/cm2 at 0.7 V, 1000 h with <30% loss

at 1.5 A/cm2, costs assessment

NON-PGM CATALYST BENCHMARKING

0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9-5

-4

-3

-2

-1

00

2

4

6

8

10

12

14 0.8 mgcm-2

j geo /

mAc

m-2

E / V vs. RHE

CNRS ICL Pajarito UNM

H2O

2 / %

Pajarito Powder/EWII MEAs do not meet project targetsü Catalysts needed with significantly

higher ORR activity and durabilityü Catalyst layer thickness, <40 µm. ü Adjust I/C ratio to avoid blocking the

mesoporous structure of the electrode, but without sacrificing the proton conductivity in the catalyst layer under dry operating conditions.

Room temperature 57Fe Mössbauer spectra of the four benchmarked catalysts

0.5M H2SO4, O2-satd, 25°C, 1 mV·s-1 scan rate, 1600rpm, 0.8 mg·cm-2 loading. a) polarisation curves andb) selectivity toward hydrogen peroxide production

57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy

Mass activity from RRDE

Relative % Fe Speciation

a

b

Air

BMW JM CNRS ICL Pajarito

NON-PGM MEA BENCHMARKING

Four State-of-the-Art Catalysts benchmarked:ü Rotating Ring Disk Electrodeü 57Fe Mössbauer Spectroscopy, XPS, XRD, surface areaü CO chemisorption/nitrite stripping to determine site density

and turnover frequency

D. J. Jones1, A. Roy1, M. T. Sougrati1, Nicolas Donzel1, P. Y. Blanchard1, F. Jaouen1, J. Sharman2, G. Spikes2, A.M. Bonastre2, D. Fongalland2, L. Smith2, M. Primbs3, Y. Sun3,P. Strasser3, A. Mehmood4, A. Kucernak4, S. Agnoli5, L. Calvillo5, T. Kosmala5, G. Daniel5 , G. Granozzi5, C. Durante5, A. Orfanidi6 , B. Reuillard 7, V. Artero7

1 CNRS Montpellier, 2 Johnson Matthey Fuel Cells, 3 Technical University of Berlin, 4 Imperial College London, 5 Università di Padova, 6 BMW Group, 7CEA/Grenoble

Pt, Ir, Rh, Pd are the rarest elements in the

earth’s crust

IDENTIFICATION OF TRANSPORT LIMITATIONS IN CATHODE LAYER

Mercury Intrusion Porosimetry

Low mesoporousvolume in Fe-NC catalyst Poor mass transport properties

Effect of Humidity on Water Uptake

Mercury intrusion porosimetry comparing pore size of conventional Pt/C with MOF derived

Fe-N-C catalyst

JMFC 10 g scaled-up batch of CNRS hybrid 2

%Pt/Fe-N-C

Fe-NC catalyst

50%Pt/C

ü Increase activity and active site density

ü Increase stabilityü Resolve cathode mass

transport limitation

NON-PGM ANODE

Nickel phosphine based bioinspired molecular catalystsü Supported on functionalised carbon nanotubes or graphenic acidü High tolerance to COü Tolerance to H2S under investigation