Objectives: DC12 will explore how the composition and processing of electrocatalytic inks impact their performance in the manufacturing of fuel cell electrodes. It is known that both the composition of an electrocatalytic ink (type and concentration of carbon blacks, (alloyed) platinum nanoparticles, and solvent mixture) and processing steps (ultrasonication, vacuum treatment, high-shear or other mechanical mixing) highly affects the final ink properties and hereby the coated electrode and its performance. However, a full understanding of how the various composition and processing parameters function and interact is missing, which leads to material waste and undesired electrode quality. Unraveling this would greatly accelerate the efforts of manufacturing high-quality electrodes at scale. A variety of testing methods and quality- control protocols will be implemented and tried out in the actual industrial processing lines at ADV and alongside more fundamental rheological/structural characterization in collaboration with specialists at UEDIN and FORTH. This combined approach will bridge the gap between industrial practice and physical insights gained through work with model systems (DC UK2).
Academic secondment: The DC will be at UEDIN (14M/M3-M6, M21-M30) to work on using imaging /structural characterisation methods (cryo-FIB-SEM) and rheological characterisation (both simple shear and non - rheometric flows) to understand industrial catalytic inks and connect to model systems used by DC UK2. FORTH (2M/M18-M19), study shear induced tuning of complex formulations for inks – effects of LAOS and steady shear – Compare with the tuning of SUNL industrial formulation.
