Carbon supported nano-sized Pt-Pd and Pt-Co electrocatalysts for proton exchange membrane fuel cells

Date
2009
Advisor
Instructor
Source Title
International Journal of Hydrogen Energy
Print ISSN
0360-3199
Electronic ISSN
1879-3487
Publisher
Volume
34
Issue
23
Pages
9450 - 9460
Language
English
Type
Article
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Abstract

Nano-sized Pt-Pd/C and Pt-Co/C electrocatalysts have been synthesized and characterized by an alcohol-reduction process using ethylene glycol as the solvent and Vulcan XC-72R as the supporting material. While the Pt-Pd/C electrodes were compared with Pt/C (20 wt.% E-TEK) in terms of electrocatalytic activity towards oxidation of H2, CO and H2-CO mixtures, the Pt-Co/C electrodes were evaluated towards oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and compared with Pt/C (20 wt.% E-TEK) and Pt-Co/C (20 wt.% E-TEK) and Pt/C (46 wt.% TKK) in a single cell. In addition, the Pt-Pd/C and Pt-Co/C electrocatalyst samples were characterized by XRD, XPS, TEM and electroanalytical methods. The TEM images of the carbon supported platinum alloy electrocatalysts show homogenous catalyst distribution with a particle size of about 3-4 nm. It was found that while the Pt-Pd/C electrocatalyst has superior CO tolerance compared to commercial catalyst, Pt-Co/C synthesized by polyol method has shown better activity and stability up to 60 °C compared to commercial catalysts. Single cell tests using the alloy catalysts coated on Nafion-212 membranes with H2 and O2 gases showed that the fuel cell performance in the activation and the ohmic regions are almost similar comparing conventional electrodes to Pt-Pd anode electrodes. However, conventional electrodes give a better performance in the ohmic region comparing to Pt-Co cathode. It is worth mentioning that these catalysts are less expensive compared to the commercial catalysts if only the platinum contents were considered.

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Other identifiers
Book Title
Keywords
Pt-Co/C, Pt-Pd/C, Alcohol-reduction process, Alloy catalyst, Anode electrodes, Carbon supported platinum, CO tolerance, Commercial catalyst, Electroanalytical method, Electrocatalytic activity, Fuel cell performance, Homogenous catalyst, Membrane electrode assemblies, Nano-sized, Ohmic region, Oxidation of H, Oxygen reduction reaction, PEM fuel cell, Polyol methods, Single cells, Supporting material, TEM, TEM images, Vulcan XC72, XPS, XRD, Catalyst activity, Economic analysis, Electrocatalysts, Electrodes, Electrolysis, Electrolytic reduction, Ethylene, Ethylene glycol, Organic solvents, Oxygen, Palladium, Platinum, Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC), Platinum alloys
Citation
Published Version (Please cite this version)