Catalyst Development Needs and Pathways for Automotive PEM Fuel Cells

Mass production of fuel cell light-duty vehicles at competitive cost requires cathode (oxygen reduction reaction [ORR]) kinetic mass activities 4-fold higher than those of current state-of-the-art platinum / carbon black catalysts. 1 A catalyst-related cell voltage loss less than 50 mV over the entire current density range is sought over a >10 year automotive lifetime including ~300,000 large load cycles and ~30,000 start-stop cycles. While the materials set used in current demonstration vehicles falls short of these goals, pathways to these challenging targets are visible via increased attention to the structural details of Pt-containing multicomponent catalysts and through development of catalyst and support as a single system.