Interlink among catalyst loading, transport and performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cells: a pore-scale study

An optimum balance between performance and Pt loading is critically important for the commercialization of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells. This research aims to investigate the interlink among Pt loading, reactive transport, and performance. An advanced pore-scale model is developed to describe the coupled reactive transport in the catalyst layer (CL) with the reactant gas, protons, and electrons all considered. The CL microstructure is stochastically reconstructed as a computational domain, and the physicochemical phenomena inside CLs are resolved by a multi-component lattice Boltzmann (LB) model. The results show that the electronic potential drop is not sensitive to Pt loading, while the ionic potential drop is much higher. The distributions of local overpotential and the reaction rate are similar with peak values near the membrane, indicating the importance of proton conduction. A high Pt loading could decrease the local transport loss for a shorter path to catalyst sites, but increases the overall transport resistance for a thicker structure. Although a larger electrochemical surface area (ECSA) is provided under a high Pt loading, a low Pt loading (0.1 mg cm-2) is suggested for high current conditions (2 A cm-2) where the transport loss is the main factor restricting the performance.