Performance and Durability of Heavy-Duty Fuel Cell Systems with an Advanced Ordered Intermetallic ORR Alloy Catalyst and Novel Support

Abstract

Ordered PtCo intermetallic (OIM) catalyst (L10-PtCo/C) is a promising candidate as the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalyst in hybrid fuel cell systems (FCS) for class-8 heavy duty (HD) trucks. Compared to a baseline annealed Pt on high surface area carbon (a-Pt/HSC) catalyst, its mass activity (MA) is 71% higher initially and 144% higher after 90,000 potential cycles in an accelerated stress test (AST). Analysis of the AST data indicates that the ORR kinetic constants do not change with aging and the degradation in the OIM catalyst activity is linearly proportional to the loss in the electrochemically active surface area (ECSA). Several operational strategies are investigated to mitigate catalyst degradation and achieve 25,000-h electrode lifetime and 2.5 kW/g Pt utilization on a HD truck duty cycle including load sharing with the hybrid battery, regulating the radiator fan power to maintain the coolant temperature close to 60oC, clipping the maximum cell voltage below 850 mV, limiting the ECSA loss to 55%, and oversizing the membrane active area by 20%. Drive cycle simulations indicate that the lifetime average voltage degradation rate is about 1.8 V/h and the integrated stack and FCS drive cycle efficiencies decrease by 3.5 to 3.9%.