Superior MicroPowders LLC (SMP, Albuquerque, NM) announced that it has signed a subcontract agreement with DuPont Fuel Cells (Wilmington, DE) allowing the two parties to collaborate under SMP's recently awarded $5.12 million program from the US Department of Energy (DOE, Washington, DC) for fuel cell materials development. The DOE program focuses on the development of new low-platinum content, electrocatalyst compositions and membrane-electrode assembly (MEA) cathode structures for proton-exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell applications.
The contract entitled "Development of Improved Ultra-Low PT PEM Fuel Cell Cathode Structures through An Integrated Powder-Discovery-Production Platform with Digital Layer Prototyping" will be performed by SMP as the prime contractor in collaboration with DuPont, CFD Research Corp. and leading fuel cell stack manufacturers.
Under the DOE program, SMP will utilize combinatorial discovery methods to develop advanced fuel cell electrocatalysts and MEAs. The approach allows for the rapid preparation of many different electrocatalysts, which vary in composition and microstructure. DuPont's effort is focused on the rapid screening of combinatorially discovered electrocatalysts and MEA cathode structures. CFD Research has the responsibility of modeling of the MEA structures.
