News

Moritz Geuß from the FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg will be working with us in the field of PEM Water Electrolysis, for details see our “Research” page. His research will focus on the degradation of the anodic catalyst layer during high current operation. Combining GDE setup, online ICP-MS and IL-TEM will help to understand degradation mechanisms during long-term operation of PEM Water Electrolyzers. This project will be realized with partners within HI ERN and from the industry.

Dr. Benavente Llorente is getting a Georg Forster Research Fellowship for postdoctoral researchers, funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. And she will join us in September 2021.

Victoria received her Ph.D. in Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentine. During her thesis, she focused on Spectroelectrochemistry and Photoelectrochemistry of nanostructured semiconductors. Her postdoctoral research was related to the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) on Ni and NiMo composites electrodes. Victoria will investigate the degradation of α-Fe₂O₃ photoanodes during oxygen evolution reaction (OER) with mass spectrometry (ICP-MS).  A deeper understanding of the photoelectrochemical dissolution of α-Fe₂O₃ is important to design strategies that prevent degradation. 

We are looking forward to having you on the team!

More details on this research is in the original paper - https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41929-020-0497-y.

Jakob Scholl, who studies chemical and biological engineering at Friedrich-Alexander-University, investigates possible high-throughput methods for photoelectrochemical water splitting for his master thesis. The focus lies on developing a high-throughput synthesis route for photoactive anode materials. The materials are characterized by XRD, SEM, and LSM, and additional photoelectrochemical tests are carried out with a scanning flow cell setup.

Dr. Valentín Briega Martos received his Ph.D. from the University of Alicante (Spain) and his previous research was related to the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) on Pt single crystal electrodes. Valentín will investigate the mechanisms of the electrochemical oxidation, restructuring, and dissolution of Pt from a fundamental point of view by using Pt single crystal electrodes and shape-controlled Pt nanoparticles in mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and surface X-ray diffraction (SXRD) measurements. This is important for achieving a complete understanding of Pt catalyst degradation on fuel cells.

Our new work on Pt dissolution in realistic fuel cell catalyst layers was published in Angewandte Chemie. In this current work we present the first experimental approach to measure Pt dissolution in gas diffusion electrodes (GDE). Therefore we coupled our GDE half-cell setup with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICPMS). With this, Pt dissolution in realistic catalyst layers and the transport of dissolved Pt species through Nafion membranes are evaluated directly.
We hereby observe that (i) specific Pt dissolution is increasing significantly with decreasing Pt loading, (ii) in comparison to experiments on aqueous model systems with flow cells, the measured dissolution in GDE experiments is considerably lower and, (iii) by adding a membrane onto the catalyst layer, Pt dissolution is reduced even further. All these phenomena can be attributed to the varying mass transport conditions of dissolved Pt species, influencing re-deposition and equilibrium potential. With the presented method we were also able to measure the diffusion coefficient of Pt species in Nafion, which can be of great importance when modelling fuel cell degradation.

More details can be found in Angewandte Chemie International Edition at the following link: https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202014711.

We congratulate Pascal with this achievement and wish him more awards and prizes for his upcoming works in our group!

Before joining our group, Pascal Kaiser did his master work at the University of Duisburg-Essen. During his master, he investigated corrosion of zinc alloys using electrochemical methods.

At 44th Frumkin readings (44 Фрумкинские чтения), Serhiy was talking about the problems in measuring and benchmarking of stability and activity of electrocatalysts. The talk (in Russian) is available on YouTube "Проблемы при измерении и сравнении стабильности и активности электрокатализаторов".

More details on the event and other talks can be found at the webpage of the Moscow State University - http://www.elch.chem.msu.ru/wp3/index.php/ru/science/chtenia/.

Being selected as a 2020 HOT PCCP article, our collaborative paper titled "Anisotropy of Pt nanoparticles on carbon- and oxide-support and their structural response to electrochemical oxidation probed by in situ techniques" is made free to be accessed until the end of January 2021.