PILBCP-IL Composite Ionomers for High Current Density Performance

Technical Report · Tue Jun 18 04:00:00 EDT 2024

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/2370467· OSTI ID:2370467

Snyder, Joshua ^[1]; Elabd, Yossef ^[2]; Kongkanand, Anusorn ^[3]; Neyerlin, Kenneth ^[4]; Tang, Maureen ^[5]

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1. Drexel Univ., Philadelphia, PA (United States); Drexel University
2. Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States)
3. General Motors LLC, Detroit, MI (United States)
4. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
5. Drexel Univ., Philadelphia, PA (United States)

Wide-spread commercialization of fuel cell electric vehicles using proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) power sources requires that several existing limitations be addressed. These include: (1) a reduction in platinum (Pt) loading in the catalytic electrodes, (2) improvements in reactant and electronic mobility throughout the catalytic electrodes, (3) reduction in the reliance on materials derived from polluting “forever chemicals”, and (4) a significant improvement in the operational longevity of catalytic electrode components. In this project, a team of two universities, Drexel University and Texas A&M University, one national lab, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and one company, General Motors, collaborated to develop a new cathode ionomer chemistry that would address these limitations and result in an improvement in performance over existing ionomer materials. The key technology developed through this collaborative project was a composite cathode ionomer encompassing an ionic liquid interlayer between Pt catalysts and a sulfonated polymerized ionic liquid block co-polymer (S-PILBCP) that possess the orthogonal properties of protonic conductivity and ionic liquid enhanced kinetics and durability (see schematic in Figure 1). The composite S-PILBCP ionomer eliminates many of the existing issues with perfluorosulfonic acid-based ionomers including active site blocking by sulfonate specific adsorption, restricted O₂ transport through ionomer films, limited humidity tolerance and active area loss for carbon pore confined catalyst particles, and use of polluting “forever chemicals”. Following successful integration of the developed composite ionic liquid into a PEMFC cathode catalyst layer, we demonstrate enhanced performance over Nafion containing cathodes with Pt/C and PtCo/C at both low and high current density. The performance with our composite S-PILBCP ionomer meets the Department of Energy (DOE) targets for light duty vehicle applications

• Research Organization: Drexel Univ., Philadelphia, PA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Office of Sustainable Transportation. Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technologies Office (HFTO)
• DOE Contract Number: EE0008434
• OSTI ID: 2370467
• Report Number(s): FC309
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

08 HYDROGEN
S-PILBCP
ionic liquid