Research on Asphalt-Derived Carbon as a Catalyst for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell

As the society and technology advanced these years, the concern about Earth's energy and climate warming rose up. Meanwhile, the appearance of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) promotes the development of many fields, like transportation and aerospace. However, PEMFC is limited by the performance and cost of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), and relies on Platinum-based catalyst to improve the reaction efficiency, which is scarce, expensive, and may result in catalyst activity decrease under complex reaction environment. That greatly increases the production cost of PEMFC and encourage scientists to develop some non-Platinum catalysts that are friendly environmental, low-priced and abundant. Thus, carbon-based materials stand out due to their high conductivity, good stability and structural designability, including Asphalt-Derived Carbon, which can converse to porous carbon materials with excellent conductivity and adjustable structure. Consequently, this article aims to illustrate the advantages of asphalt-derived carbon, compare several designs of controlled carbonization process for asphalt-derived carbon and the future of asphalt-derived carbon.