Alkaline polymer electrolyte fuel cell with Ni-based anode and Co-based cathode

• An APEFC using nonprecious metal catalyst in both the anode and the cathode.
• A novel catalyst, W-doped Ni, is fabricated and applied in the anode.
• CoPPY/C, an efficient catalyst for 4-electron reduction of O2 in alkaline media.

Alkaline polymer electrolyte fuel cells (APEFCs) are a new class of fuel cell that has been expected to combine the advantages of alkaline fuel cells (AFCs) and polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs). In recent decade, APEFCs have drawn much attention in the fuel cell world. While great efforts have been devoted to the development of high-performance alkaline polymer electrolytes (APEs), prototypes of APEFC using nonprecious metal catalysts in both the anode and the cathode have not been well implemented, except for our previous report where Ni–Cr was used as the anode catalyst and Ag was employed as the cathode catalyst. In the present work, we report our recent progress in this regard. The self-crosslinked quaternary ammonia polysulfone (xQAPS), a high-performance APE that possesses both good ionic conductivity and extremely high dimensional stability, is applied as both the electrolyte membrane and the ionomer impregnated in the electrodes. Carbon-supported Co-polypyrrole (CoPPY/C) is employed as the cathode catalyst and a new Ni-based catalyst, W-doped Ni, is used as the anode catalyst, which features in high oxidation tolerance. H2–O2 and H2-air APEFCs are thus fabricated and show a decent performance with peak power density being 40 and 27.5 mW/cm2 at 60 °C, respectively.