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Pamella Rodrigues is Brazilian and a Ph.D. student at the University of São Paulo, working in the Electrochemistry Group in Brazil, and will carry out a doctoral research internship in the Electrochemical Energy Conversion group (ECC) with a Research Internship Abroad Grant (BEPE) granted by the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) for one year, starting in February 2024.

Her current Ph.D. project focuses on investigating the catalytic activity of nickel selenide-based catalysts for water electrolysis. Now, joining the ECC group at  Helmholtz Institute Erlangen-Nürnberg for Renewable Energy (HI-ERN), she plans to deepen her knowledge regarding the stability of materials through online techniques using ICP-MS.

Title: Standardizing OER Electrocatalyst Benchmarking in Aqueous Electrolytes: Comprehensive Guidelines for Accelerated Stress Tests and Backing Electrodes

In this study, we explore the complex interplay of backing electrode degradation mechanisms and accelerated stress test conditions during the oxygen evolution reaction. Our findings not only shed light on these mechanisms but also set the stage for more effective benchmarking strategies for future catalysts. By proposing optimal testing conditions and backing electrodes, we're contributing to the development of standardized testing protocols. This brings us a step closer to improving catalyst lifetime estimation, a crucial factor in advancing real-world applications.

We thank all the collaborators for contributing to this work, which is now published in ACS Catalysis and is openly accessible: https://lnkd.in/gUudFjnK

Pascal will visit Prof. Iryna Zenyuk at the University of California Irvine, where he will work on ionic-liquids-filled catalyst layer pores for fuel cells. The idea is to improve conductivity and mass transport so that the durability and high efficiency of energy materials for fuel cells can be maximized.

Ken will visit Prof. John Gregoire at the California Institute of Technology, where he will work on data-driven methods to accelerate electrocatalyst discovery via autonomous experimentations.

We wish both of them good luck and a fruitful experience.

Joanna Przybysz is a master's student in Advanced materials and processes at the Friedrich Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. Her thesis is focused on the high-throughput synthesis of model Ir_xCo_1-xO_y electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction in acidic media. By careful electrode surface preparation and optimization of the metal precursor ink composition, she aims to produce high-quality patterned catalytic thin films suitable for electrochemical activity and stability screening using the scanning flow cell (SFC) coupled to an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS).

Our visiting researchers last year, Dr. Victoria Benavente Llorente and Tuani Carla Gentil, participated in the 34^th Topical Meeting of the International Society of Electrochemistry in Mar del Plata, Argentina. Especially, Tuani' s work with us "Stability study of Pd-based electrocatalysts by Online SFC-ICP-MS applied to EOR" won the Best Poster Award! Congratulations!

Lucía Morales, a student of the M.Sc. Advanced Materials and Processes at FAU in Erlangen, is joining the group to carry on her master thesis. The topic will complement the research of different catalyst layers (CL) of low Pt metal proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) using the in-house built Gas Diffusion Electrode (GDE) in collaboration with Pascal Lauf, a Ph.D. candidate from our group.

But what’s new?  The project will go into further analysis of the performance of the ORR reaction when changing the Pt carbon support (non-porous and porous) of the CL. Thus, bridging the gap between fundamental and applied research of PEMFC by checking the reaction over the range of relevant FC potentials and current densities thanks to the use of the GDE setup. 

Being selected for the Trainee Network of the Helmholtz Information & Data Science Academy (HIDA), Ken will learn and apply machine learning methods that can be used in the context of material optimization, so-called Bayesian optimization. It is an active learning strategy that can also build the foundation for self-driving laboratories. The exchange will be conducted at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in the AiMat group led by Prof. Dr. Pascal Friederich.

Congratulations to Konrad, who defended his Ph.D. thesis entitled "Bridging the gap between fundamental and applied fuel cell electrocatalysis using gas diffusion electrodes". With this, five exciting and successful years come to an end. We are grateful that with his work, he set a profound basis for more GDE half-cell research to come in our group, and we wish Konrad all the best for his upcoming steps.

Carolin Igel from the Technische Hochschule Nürnberg will conduct research in the field of Proton Exchange Membrane Water Electrolysis (PEMWE), of which the details can be found on our “Research” page. The focus of her Master thesis will be the investigation of the activity-stability relationship of iridium/ruthenium anode catalysts in PEMWE. This research will be conducted in collaboration with Maja Milosevic, a PhD candidate from the group.

Kavita Kumar obtained her Ph.D. in Electrochemistry from the University of Poitiers (France) in 2017 under the direction of Prof. K. Boniface Kokoh, Dr. Têko W. Napporn and Dr. Aurélien Habrioux. During her Ph.D., she mostly focused on the preparation of transition metal oxides deposed onto graphene-based materials for catalyzing oxygen reduction and evolution reactions (ORR & OER) in alkaline media. Since 2018, she is post-doctoral research associate in the Interfacial Electrochemistry and Processes group of the LEPMI, Grenoble (France), headed by Dr. Frédéric Maillard. Her current research interests mostly lie on the structure-activity-stability relationships of platinum group metal-free catalysts for oxygen electrocatalysis.

Kavita will investigate the degradation of Fe-N-C electrocatalysts during the ORR in alkaline media using mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). A deeper understanding of the stability of Fe-N-C is important to develop mitigation strategies for sustainable energy devices.