Wood-based Carbon Catalysts for Low-temperature Fuel Cells - WoBaCat

Project summary

The reduction of the cost of low carbon energy technologies is currently one of the most important topics in the world. For the fuel cell industry, one of the main focuses is the development of novel anode and cathode catalyst materials in both proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) and anion exchange membrane fuel cells (AEMFCs) instead of costly platinum. Therefore, main objective of this project is to develop novel and cost effective wood-based nanocarbon non-Pt anode and cathode catalysts for AEMFC and PEMFC application. High surface area carbon nanostructures will be synthesized from the wood, cellulose and cellulose production residues. These carbon materials will be doped with heteroatoms and modified with metal-heteroatom active centers to increase their oxygen reduction reaction activity. To enhance the hydrogen oxidation reaction activity, heteroatom doped nanocarbon catalyst will be modified with transition metal alloys decorated with small amounts of Au.