Progress in catalytic processes for fuel cells

We will summarize the progress toward low temperature fuel cells using CH4 as the fuel being developed as part of the DOE-EFRC Center for Catalysis of Hydrocarbons. This builds on the progress in CH4 to CH3OH homogeneous catalysts by the Periana and Goddard groups and in coupling catalysts to electrochemical electrodes by the Meyer group. We will also describe the new mechanism of the Oxygen Reduction Reaction (ORR) on the cathode for PEM hydrogen fuel cells. Here we used QM to determine the reaction pathways and barriers at the catalyst under hydrophobic or gas environments and aqueous environments to establish the detailed sequence of steps. We find that key steps are Had catalyzed dissociated of O2 in the gas region and hydrolysis of the Oad to OHad in this region. We suggest a design the might decrease the activation energy from 0.55 eV to 0.3 eV.