Polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) is a clean technology that directly converts hydrogen fuel into electricity and produces only clean water. PEFCs are characterised by their high efficiency (> 50 %), rapid start-up (~ 1 s) and low operating temperatures (< 100°C). They have been therefore the fuel cell of choice for some giant auto manufacturers to demonstrate/sell their hydrogen-powered vehicles: Toyota Mirai, Honda Clarity or Hyundai Nexo. The widespread deployment of polymer electrolyte fuel cell powered systems is however hindered by the use of costly platinum-based catalysts.
The goal of this project is thus to develop substantially cheaper but high performing materials to replace precious platinum based catalysts and other porous media. To that end, carbon foam based materials were found to be promising. To pursue this goal, you will synthesise various carbon foam based materials, characterise them and perform ex-situ and in-situ tests on them including advanced electrochemistry and laser spectroscopy. The central element of the study is to correlate the intrinsic electronic properties of the carbon foam materials (to be obtained using the latest time-resolved ultrafast spectroscopy equipment available in the Lord Porter Laser Laboratory) to the performance indicators of the fuel cell in order to continually refine the proposed materials and eventually realise more efficient PEFCs.
You will be part of an active, interdisciplinary research team at the University of Sheffield. This project will be jointly supervised by Dr Adrien Chauvet (an expert in spectroscopy), Dr Mohammed Ismail (an expert in fuel cell technology) and Prof Mohammed Pourkashanian (Head of the Energy Institute).
Further details can be found in this document: https://teamchauvet.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/phd-studentship-advert.pdf