Life cycle assessment of a recycling process - case study of platinum catalyst recycling from spent PEM fuel cells
Abstract
The rapid growth of the electronic sector together with the electric vehicle development are
responsible for the constantly growing energy demand. At the same time the humanity faces the
problems related to the fossil fuel resources exhaustion and to the pollution and global warming
caused by fossil fuels burning. The renewable energy sources seem to be a promising solution
nevertheless the majority of them are intermittent and cannot thus guarantee stable and reliable
energy supply. However these sources can be used to produce hydrogen – an energy carrier. This
gas can then serve as reactive in fuel cells to produce electricity.Fuels cells operate by the means of a
non-combustive electrochemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen yielding water vapor and
producing electricity and heat.This reaction is catalyzed both on the cathode and the anode by Pt
nanoparticles based catalyst. The presence of Pt makes this solution rather expensive.
Nevertheless taking into account that nearly 25% of EU CO2 emissions are related to transport [1], the
use of so-called clean vehicles (both electric and hydrogen powered fuel cells) is currently largely
promoted. However,taking into account the non-renewable character of Pt catalyst and the supply
problems related to its scarcity an important rate of Pt catalyst recycling should be reached in order to
guarantee a real sustainable solution.Thus several alternatives of a low temperature Pt recycling
process were developed in this work specifically for Pt catalyst from spent PEM fuel cells. Moreover
the environmental impact of the process was assessed using life cycle assessment (LCA)
methodology and the results were used to choose the less impacting recycling alternative.