Continuous and Scalable Manufacturing of Platinum-Nickel Nanocatalysts for Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells

用于聚合物电解质膜燃料电池的铂镍纳米催化剂的连续和规模化制造

基本信息

批准号：
1634687
负责人：
Younan Xia
金额：
$ 25万
依托单位：
Georgia Tech Research Corporation
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2016
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2016-09-01 至 2019-08-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1634687&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
Continuous Scalable Manufacturing Platinum Nickel

项目摘要

Metal nanocrystals with controlled shapes are essential to a variety of applications, including energy conversion, environmental protection, and chemical/pharmaceutical manufacturing. Despite recent progress in their synthesis, there still exists a major gap in transitioning the nanocrystals from academic studies to industrial applications, primarily due to the lack of ability to manufacture them at an industrially relevant scale without compromising quality. Recent demonstrations indicate that continuous-flow droplet reactors offer a practical platform for the scalable and cost-effective production of metal nanocrystals with uniform sizes and controlled shapes. The droplet-based platform offers a linearly scalable technology that can be operated at both small and large quantities under essentially identical conditions for the purposes of protocol optimization and manufacturing, respectively. In addition to the scientific and technological advances, this award will help forge links between different disciplines that include nonmanufacturing, materials science, catalysis, colloidal science, and energy technology. It also has immediate impacts on the society in the following two aspects: manufacturing of nanocatalysts for fuel cells, a truly zero-emission technology critical to environmental protection; and promotion of diversity in higher education by engaging women, minorities, and other underrepresented groups into this project.In working with its collaborators at Nissan, the team aims to develop a new technology for the scalable manufacturing of octahedral platinum-nickel nanocrystals. Such bimetallic nanocrystals have been produced in batch reactors and demonstrated with the highest activity toward oxygen reduction, a key reaction occurring on the cathodes of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). However, due to the poor batch-to-batch reproducibility and inevitable variations between syntheses, it has proven challenging to obtain an adequate amount of uniform nanocrystals for device testing. Through this award, an optimal combination of metal precursors and reductant will be identified based on kinetic measurements to ensure that the reduction will not occur prematurely, and instead only when the droplet reactors pass through a reaction zone held at an elevated temperature. A similar protocol will also be developed to conformally coat the surfaces of platinum-nickel octahedra with platinum shells of 1-2 atomic layers thick to greatly enhance their catalytic activity. The catalysts will be tested by engineers at Nissan and evaluated for commercial use in vehicles powered by PEMFCs. This research will pave the way for future deployment of industrial catalysts based on nanocrystals with controlled shapes.

具有控制形状的金属纳米晶体对于各种应用至关重要，包括能量转换，环境保护和化学/药物制造。尽管它们的合成最近取得了进展，但仍存在一个很大的差距，将纳米晶体从学术研究转变为工业应用，这主要是由于缺乏以工业相关规模制造它们而不会损害质量的能力。最近的演示表明，连续流液滴反应堆为具有均匀尺寸和受控形状的金属纳米晶体的可扩展性生产提供了实用平台。基于液滴的平台提供了一项线性可扩展的技术，在基本相同的条件下，为了进行协议优化和制造，可以在大量和大量的条件下运行，分别可以在大量和大量的情况下运行。除了科学和技术进步外，该奖项还将有助于不同学科之间的联系，包括非制造，材料科学，催化，胶体科学和能源技术。它在以下两个方面也对社会产生了直接影响：燃料电池的纳米催化剂制造，这是一种对环境保护至关重要的零发射技术；以及通过与Nissan的合作者合作，促进妇女，少数群体和其他代表性不足的群体来促进高等教育的多样性，该团队旨在开发一种新技术，以延伸八面体铂金尼古尔尼克尔纳米晶体。这种双金属纳米晶体已经在批处理反应堆中产生，并证明了对还原的最高活性，这是在聚合物电解质膜燃料电池（PEMFC）的阴极上发生的关键反应。但是，由于批处理可重复性较差和合成之间不可避免的变化，因此获得足够数量的均匀纳米晶体来进行设备测试，事实证明，它具有挑战性。通过该奖项，将根据动力学测量值确定金属前体和还原剂的最佳组合，以确保不会过早发生降低，并且只有当液滴反应器穿过在升高温度下的反应区域时，才能进行降低。还将开发类似的方案，可以将铂尼克尔八甲壳类的表面与1-2个原子层厚的铂壳覆盖，以极大地增强其催化活性。 Nissan的工程师将对催化剂进行测试，并评估由PEMFC提供动力的车辆的商业用途。这项研究将为基于具有控制形状的纳米晶体的工业催化剂的未来部署铺平道路。