Facile Synthesis of Surfactant‐Induced Platinum Nanospheres with a Porous Network Structure for Highly Effective Oxygen Reduction Catalysis

Abstract

Developing a facile and eco-friendly method for the large-scale synthesis of highly active and stable catalysts toward oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is very important for the practical application of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). In this paper, a mild aqueous-solution route has been successfully developed for the gram-scale synthesis of three-dimensional porous Pt nanospheres (Pt-NSs) that are composed of network-structured nanodendrites and/or oval multipods. In comparison with the commercial Pt/C catalyst, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) demonstrates the dominant metallic-state of Pt and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) indicates the substantial improvement of conductivity for the Pt-NSs/C catalyst. The surfactant-induced porous network nanostructure improves both the catalytic ORR activity and durability. The optimal Pt-NSs/C catalyst exhibits a half-wave potential of 0.898 V (vs. RHE), leading to the mass activity of 0.18 A mg Pt À 1 and specific activity of 0.68 mA cm À 2 which are respectively 1.9 and 5.7 times greater than those of Pt/C. Moreover, the highly-active Pt-NSs/C catalyst shows a superior stability with the tenable morphology and the retained 78% of initial mass activity rather than the severe Pt aggregation and the only 58% retention of the commercial Pt/C catalyst after 10000 cycles.

Engineering carbon semi-tubes supported platinum catalyst for efficient oxygen reduction electrocatalysis

“…The diameter of Nyquist semicircle is positively correlated with the charge-transfer resistance ( R ct ) of oxygen reduction process from O 2 to H 2 O. 49 , 50 The typical R ct values are about 26.7 and 29.7 Ω for the Pt/N-CST and Pt/C coated electrodes, respectively. As well known, the fast charge and ion transfer is important for a good electrocatalyst.…”