Zipeng Zhao

A hydrogen fuel cell is a device that converts energy stored in hydrogen gas into electrical energy. Currently, the broad implementation of a fuel cell is limited by its high-level usage of platinum group metal (PGM) as catalysts, which leads to the issue of high production costs and limited noble metal resources.

Dr. Zipeng Zhao has made greatest contribution to the development of a graphene-nanopocket-encaged Pt-based catalyst that enabled the fuel cell to meet and beat ambitious targets for high catalytic performance, balanced of high activity and high stability. The prepared membrane electrode assembly (MEA) can achieve a power density of 13.2 kW/g, which means a 90 kW fuel cell vehicle will only need around 6.8 gram of PGM if the catalyst developed by me can be applied. The projected loading of 6.8 grams per vehicle is at the same level as that (2-8 grams per vehicle) for an internal combustion engine powered vehicle, which means the noble metal resource limitation is no longer an issue.

To improve catalyst performance in fuel cells, Zhao identified the mass transport issue was responsible for limiting the performance of a fuel cell. The major mass transport is greatly affected by the structure of the catalyst layer, which is mainly composed of carbon support. His work, for the first time, achieved the performance targets in terms of mass activity, durability, and rated power simultaneously, which is a huge step toward the broad implementation of the hydrogen fuel cell.

In addition, Zipeng’s research revealed that the stability and the activity of platinum-nickel (PtNi) alloy nanocatalysts can be greatly improved by introducing copper. It is worth noting that the introduction of copper changes the synthetic mechanism of the PtNi alloy nanocatalyst and results in the enrichment of platinum on the surface of the nanocatalyst, which contributes to the improvement of stability.

Besides the fundamental research, he also made his contribution to the commercialization of newly developed materials, collaborating with fuel cell vehicle companies.