Enhanced Catalysts from Nanostructured Materials

79589S In his 2003 State of the Union Address, President Bush announced his initiative to make fuel cell powered automobiles a reality by 2020. This goal would require technology to reduce the cost of the fuel cell power plant. The platinum catalyst is an important target for cost reduction. Automotive fuel cell power plants require up to 17 grams of platinum per vehicle (raw material costs for platinum are currently on the order of $30/gram), with processing costs running into the hundreds of dollars. This project will develop a low-cost method for manufacturing and depositing fuel cell catalysts directly onto fuel cell component substrates. The technique will be based on an arc plasma reactor that produces nanoscale, high quality fuel cell catalysts from dry material stock, without the need for complicated solution chemistry or tedious purification steps. The reactor will provide in situ catalyst deposition directly onto the fuel cell gas diffusion media, and will be scaleable to allow for mass production in a line process. Phase I, will adapt an arc plasma reactor to produce uniform, pure, active, and inexpensive nanoscale fuel cell catalysts. A direct deposition module for applying this catalyst onto fuel cell gas diffusion layers, as the catalyst is produced, will be designed. Criteria for success will be performance equal to or better than that available from the more expensive, higher-platinum-loaded catalysts currently in use today. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: The technology should bring the catalyst component of fuel cells into the price range needed to make the widespread use of fuel cells a reality. These low cost fuel cells will have applications in power plants for cars, backup power for cellular tower and office buildings, and distributed power for residential homes and apartment complexes. Military applications include remote power for tent cities, quiet power generation for silent watch operations, and backup power for critical military facilities.