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Novel Materials for Green Hydrogen Production, Energy Conversion, and Fuel Cell Applications

A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Energy Materials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 December 2023) | Viewed by 1958

Special Issue Editors

Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong (THEi), Hong Kong
Interests: hydrogen storage materials; heterogeneous catalysis; hydrogen production; application in fuel cells
Institute of Textiles & Clothing, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
Interests: conductive textiles; thermoregulatory textiles; technical textiles; biomimetic textiles; testing instrumentation; fabrics and fabric design

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Recent years have witnessed fascinating developments in various fields of catalysis and the step-by-step transformation of scientific progress into novel technologies, which as a rule, exhibit not only a substantially enhanced catalytic performance but are also friendly towards energy production and the environment. The field of heritage conservation, with all its traditionalism and multidisciplinarity, also profited from this development. However, the specific features of this field have led to a considerable scattering of the literary sources and a lack of mutual information between all the relevant subjects.

This Special Issue should help to overcome these problems. It provides an opportunity to create a compendium of the novel methods, which will not only boost further scientific progress in the field of green hydrogen production and fuel cell applications but also provide researchers with a useful literary overview. It is focused on advanced solutions to fundamental problems in hydrogen production, the perceptions of which are often far ahead of their solutions.

I cordially invite you to submit your contribution to this issue, whose topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Efficient heterogeneous catalysis for hydrogen production from hydrogen storage materials (e.g., ammonia borane, formic acid, etc.);
  • Fuel cells applications;
  • Flexible fuel cells and solar fuel cells;
  • Fiber-based lightweight fuel cells and applications in garment heating;
  • Novel hydrogen storage materials and their mechanisms for hydrogen production;
  • Novel applications of hydrogen energy (e.g., flexible devices, textiles and fabrics, and smart devices);
  • The use of the Single-Atom strategy for hydrogen production;
  • Process simulation and economics for hydrogen production process from hydrogen storage materials;
  • The recycling process for spent hydrogen storage materials and its techno-economic assessment;
  • Mechanistic study of hydrogen release from hydrogen storage materials using the Density Functional Theory.

Both research and review articles are welcome!

Dr. Tsang Chi-Wing
Dr. Manas Kumar Sarkar
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • heterogeneous catalysis
  • hydrogen production
  • hydrogen application in small devices, e.g., drones
  • safe hydrogen storage materials (solids and liquids)
  • single-atom catalysts
  • flexible fuel cell
  • lightweight fuel cell
  • hydrogen production process and optimization
  • renewable hydrogen sources
  • recycling of spent hydrogen storage materials

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

18 pages, 2294 KiB  
Article
Mechanistic Study of Fast Performance Decay of PtCu Alloy-based Catalyst Layers for Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells through Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy
by Maximilian Grandi, Matija Gatalo, Ana Rebeka Kamšek, Gregor Kapun, Kurt Mayer, Francisco Ruiz-Zepeda, Martin Šala, Bernhard Marius, Marjan Bele, Nejc Hodnik, Merit Bodner, Miran Gaberšček and Viktor Hacker
Materials 2023, 16(9), 3544; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16093544 - 05 May 2023
Viewed by 1386
Abstract
In the past, platinum–copper catalysts have proven to be highly active for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), but transferring the high activities measured in thin-film rotating disk electrodes (TF-RDEs) to high-performing membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) has proven difficult due to stability issues during [...] Read more.
In the past, platinum–copper catalysts have proven to be highly active for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), but transferring the high activities measured in thin-film rotating disk electrodes (TF-RDEs) to high-performing membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) has proven difficult due to stability issues during operation. High initial performance can be achieved. However, fast performance decay on a timescale of 24 h is induced by repeated voltage load steps with H2/air supplied. This performance decay is accelerated if high relative humidity (>60% RH) is set for a prolonged time and low voltages are applied during polarization. The reasons and possible solutions for this issue have been investigated by means of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and distribution of relaxation time analysis (EIS–DRT). The affected electrochemical sub-processes have been identified by comparing the PtCu electrocatalyst with commercial Pt/C benchmark materials in homemade catalyst-coated membranes (CCMs). The proton transport resistance (Rpt) increased by a factor of ~2 compared to the benchmark materials. These results provide important insight into the challenges encountered with the de-alloyed PtCu/KB electrocatalyst during cell break-in and operation. This provides a basis for improvements in the catalysts’ design and break-in procedures for the highly attractive PtCu/KB catalyst system. Full article
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