Catalysts for direct formic acid fuel cells

Effect of the structure of Ni nanoparticles on the electrocatalytic activity of Ni@Pd/C for formic acid oxidation

“…Among problems that still need to be overcome are insufficient electro-catalytic activity of the anode catalyst for formic acid oxidation and catalyst deactivation due to formic acid oxidation on noblemetal catalysts that generates intermediates such as CO that can be adsorbed on the noble-metal catalysts' surface [4]. Although Pd/C electrocatalyst exhibited much better activity than Pt/C, its activity was still not satisfactory, and more importantly its durability was in urgent need for further improvement because of rapid deactivation of this catalyst [4e6].…”

Active Pt-PbOx/C anodes to promote the formic acid oxidation in presence of sulfuric acid

“…In fact, several authors mentioned that formic acid oxidation occurs by the indirect route on polycrystalline Pt, with chemical adsorption of CO on the electrode surface. [2][3][4] The CO oxidation can be observed at about 0.9 V vs. HESS, making polycrystalline Pt unviable as an anode in DFAFC's. In the same way, Figure 1 (b) shows the response of a Pt/C catalyst (10% of catalyst load), synthesized by a modified sol-gel method.…”

“…The formic acid oxidation can undergo two parallel pathways on platinum (with or without the CO adsorption step). 4 In the first one, called the "direct pathway", the acid is directly oxidized to carbon dioxide:…”

Sb Surface Modification of Pd by Mimetic Underpotential Deposition for Formic Acid Oxidation

“…The direct formic acid fuel cell has a theoretical open circuit potential of 1.48 V, higher than that of direct methanol fuel cell (1.18 V) [3]. The improvement of performance of DFAFCs depends on fabrication of high-efficient electrocatalysts.…”

“…The resulting CO intermediates are strongly adsorbed on the Pt surface and block the active sites, then decrease the activity. In this regards, platinum is not so favorable for practical formic acid fuel cell application because of the CO intermediates build-up, poisoning the catalysts, and degenerating the fuel cell performance gradually [3,6].…”