High-performance AEM unitized regenerative fuel cell using Pt-pyrochlore as bifunctional oxygen electrocatalyst
Pralay Gayen, Sulay Saha, Xinquan Liu, Kritika Sharma, Vijay Ramani
Abstract
Significance Unitized regenerative fuel cells (URFCs) combine the functionalities of both electrolyzers and fuel cells in a single cell/stack, enabling lower weight, volume, and capital cost. A fixed-gas URFC (FG-URFC) has the advantage of efficient and easy gas management. A highly active and highly stable bifunctional oxygen electrocatalyst with low bifunctionality index (BI) helps in achieving high performance and high round-trip efficiencies (RTE) in a URFC. In this context, Pt-Pb 2 Ru 2 O 7-x electrocatalyst is synthesized and evaluated as bifunctional oxygen electrocatalyst in alkaline medium. This electrocatalyst exhibits a low BI with highly symmetric oxygen reduction and evolution activity. The FG-URFC using Pt-Pb 2 Ru 2 O 7-x shows high RTE for an anion exchange membrane FG-URFC, providing a pathway for the development of FG-URFCs for bidirectional energy and fuel production.