(Invited) Pt Based Fuel Cell Catalysis

Pt based fuel cell catalysts are well known since many decades. The main principles of tuning activities and stabilities of especially Pt based Carbon Black fuel cell catalysts seems to be well understood. Therefore only little interest has been shown in new research and developments activities in Pt fuel cell catalysts based on commercial Carbon Blacks. Form pure scientific research view there seems to be only little or nothing new requiring a deeper understanding of the main catalytic principles and properties regarding pure Pt based Carbon Black fuel cell catalysts. On the other hand Pt based Carbon Black fuel cell catalysts are the most important commercial fuel cell catalysts. The starting and growing mass production of these type of fuel cell catalysts for all different applications requires a well-controlled synthesis process and quality check procedure including activity testing in MEA´s. Controlling the synthesis process on industrial scale on one hand requires a deep understanding of all properties of the final Pt based carbon Black catalyst. On the other hand the property control of the catalyst material is done by controlling all process steps including the understanding of correlations in-between different process parameters. From industrial view the challenge of producing such simple and for decades well known Pt based Carbon Black catalysts starts with the reproducibility of the catalytic important properties from batch to batch and in all different batch sizes. In addition to this challenge of manufacturing reproducible amounts of fuel cell catalysts the question arises how to measure the main catalytic important properties, such as the mass activity, air performance and ECSA, in a reproducible way using dependably equipment and test procedures. In this talk all aspects regarding the question of reproducible synthesis processes on different manufacturing scales as well as determining the catalytic properties in a reproducible way will be discussed using the example of such a simple catalyst type such as the Pt based on Carbon Black fuel cell catalyst.