Technology for Doubling Hydrogen Vehicle Fuel Cell Performance Developed by Korean Research Group
Professor Shim Joon Hyung’s group at KU presented a technology for doubling the performance of the fuel cells of hydrogen vehicles.
The results were published in a cover article of ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, a globally renowned journal.

▲ Researchers: (from left) Professor Shim Joon Hyung (principal investigator, corresponding author) and Seo Beum Geun (doctoral student, first author).

Hydrogen electric vehicles are spotlighted as future eco-friendly cars. In particular, they are drawing attention as long-distance transport vehicles as an alternative to battery-powered electric vehicles. The energy source of hydrogen electric vehicles is the electric power generated from the hydrogen in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFC). However, the use of a large amount of expensive platinum catalysts in PEMFCs is an obstacle to the commercialization and popularization of hydrogen electric vehicles.

Fortunately, a research group in Korea has developed a technology capable of enhancing the performance of fuel cells twofold or more while using the same amount of platinum catalyst.

Professor Shim Joon Hyung’s group of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Graduate School has drastically increased the catalytic performance and output of PEMFCs by coating a platinum support with a highly active cerium oxide.

Seo Beum Geun (doctoral student) in Professor Shim’s group participated in the research as the first author, and their results were published as a cover article in the globally renowned journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering (IF: 9.224, top 8.9% of JCR). This study was supported by the Mid-career Research Project funded by the National Research Foundation of Korea.
* 논문명 : Performance Enhancement of Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells with Cerium Oxide Interlayers Prepared by Aerosol-Assisted Chemical Vapor Deposition)

Fuel cell stacks account for 40% of the manufacturing cost of hydrogen electric vehicles, and more than half of that stack cost is related to the catalyst. Hence, the commercialization of hydrogen electric vehicles requires either reducing the amount of catalyst used or maximizing the performance while using a minimum amount of catalyst. It is almost impossible to develop a material that can perfectly replace the platinum that is used as catalyst.

Professor Shim’s group confirmed that when the catalyst support was pretreated with a cerium oxide, the electrochemical activity increased more than twice, even when using the same amount of platinum. The fuel cells manufactured by this method exhibited a performance increase of about 1.5 times. The research group carried out the oxide coating by a non-vacuum aerosol process in consideration of economic feasibility and productivity.

Long-term durability is critical for the fuel cells of commercial hydrogen electric vehicles. The oxide treatment process developed by Professor Shim’s group was found to have no significant impact on overall durability. As verification of this, the research group performed the standard accelerated aging test on the developed catalysts, involving more than 30,000 cycles in the fuel cell operation environment.

Professor Shim explained the significance of the research, “If we increase the performance twofold using the same amount of platinum, we can lower the hydrogen vehicle stack price by more than 30%. Our results will greatly help the commercialization of hydrogen electric vehicles and fuel cells, and that may be why our paper was chosen for the cover article.”

▲ The cover article published in the journal, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering.