Doctoral defence: Jonas Mart Linge “Electrochemical reduction of oxygen on silver-based catalyst“

On 25 August at 12:15 Jonas Mart Linge will defend his doctoral thesis “Electrochemical reduction of oxygen on silver-based catalyst” for obtaining the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (in Chemistry).

Supervisors:

 Professor in Colloidal and Environmental Chemistry Kaido Tammeveski, University of Tartu

Research Fellow in Colloidal and Environmental Chemistry Heiki Erikson, University of Tartu

Opponent:

Nejc Hodnik, National Institute of Chemistry, Ljubljana (Slovenia)

Summary

Hydrogen fuel cell technology has evolved to support global green energy demands and replace internal combustion engines in cars. The main drawback of fuel cell electric vehicles is their high price, which is partly due to the high cost of platinum-based cathode catalysts used in hydrogen fuel cells to enhance the kinetics of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). A solution to this problem could be the application of silver-based catalysts that in alkaline media show the electrocatalytic activity for ORR approaching to that of Pt catalysts. Silver is cheaper and more abundant than platinum, however, the silver-based catalysts still need optimisation, in order to achieve high ORR activity and stability. In this work, Ag-based catalysts have been synthesised by depositing Ag nanoparticles onto various carbon substrates using different methods and varying the Ag particle size and loading. The electrocatalytic activity and stability of the prepared Ag-based catalysts have been studied. The results obtained show that silver-based materials could indeed replace platinum-based catalysts on the cathode of the anion exchange membrane fuel cell, which in turn would make fuel cells more affordable to the consumers

Defence can be also followed in  Teamsis.