FUEL CELL CATALYSIS · Nanoscience techniques applied to studies of materials for use as catalysts in fuel cells

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Project objective

The project is concerned with the design of new catalyst materials for hydrogen energy conversion and hydrogen production with respect to applications in low-temperature fuel cells. The goal is to advance the understanding of the relevant atomic and molecular processes at the catalyst surface, and, outgoing from this understanding, to investigate new material combinations for the use as catalysts.In more detail, the project is in particular concerned with the CO poisoning problem, i.e., the deactivation of the fuel cell anode catalyst in low-temperature applications by adsorption of CO. This occurs whenever the hydrogen feed is produced from hydrocarbons, since then it inevitably contains traces of CO, or when fuels such as ethanol or biomass are used, since they are partly broken down to CO. The approach of the project is to design the geometric and electronic structure of model catalyst materials for hydrogen energy conversion and hydrogen production as to weaken the CO binding to the catalyst, to enhance CO removal by, e.g., the water gas shift reaction, and to enhance the catalyst selectivity in hydrogen production.The experimental tools comprise Scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) in vaccum and at pressures of up to one atmosphere (but under clean vacuum conditions"), electron spectroscopies (Photoemission spectroscopy (PES), X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), and X-ray emission spectroscopy (XES)), mass spectroscopy in a dedicated reaction cell, and Scanning tunnelling spectrsocopy (STS). STM allow s a structural characterisation of the investigated surface, not only in terms of the static structure in equilibrium, but also in terms of the occurring dynamic processes.These can be monitored by recording STM movies with a frame rate of 1Hz. The spectroscopies deliver complementary information about the geometric and electronic structure, which cannot be obtained by STM, and reaction data will be obtained from investigations using the reaction cell."

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Participants

• UNIVERSITY OF AARHUS · AARHUS CCoordinatorDenmark

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