Oxygen reduction and fuel oxidation in alkaline solution

Abstract

This paper reviews work carried out over a number of years to try to elucidate the mechanism of oxygen reduction and methanol oxidation in alkaline solution. We have sought to achieve this by combining electrochemical, spectroscopic and solid-state chemical approaches, bringing together as wide a variety of techniques as possible both to shed light on the mechanisms and to point the way to more effective and efficient fuel cells. This work has become considerably more topical in recent years with the development of anion-exchange electrolyte membranes that can operate in alkaline environments, an important advance since it permits both the use of non-noble-metal catalysts and organic fuels at the anode, the latter precluded in aqueous alkaline electrolyte due to precipitation of inorganic carbonates at the electrode surface.

Nitrogen-doped graphene nanosheets as high efficient catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction

“…Fuel cells have been extensively explored and show promises to replace the internal combustion engine due to their advantages including environmentally benign, high efficiency conversion, and high power density [2][3][4][5]. One hot topic in research of fuel cell is the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) occurring in cathodes at low or moderate temperatures that normally need precious platinum (Pt) based materials as catalysts [6,7]. Up to now, extensive research interests have been laid on exploring the novel durable, high active, economical, and affordable catalysts to address the existing problems in ORR [8], because ORR has been also of great significance in metal-air batteries and air cathodes for some industrial electrolytic processes [9,10].…”

Synergy among transition element, nitrogen, and carbon for oxygen reduction reaction in alkaline medium

“…ORR is a complicated condition-sensitive multi-step reaction because the ORR pathway depends on the adsorption configuration of molecular oxygen and the interaction between molecular oxygen and catalytic sites [1,2]. Oxygen adsorption configuration depends on the crystallographic structure of the catalyst (geometrical effect) and the binding energy (chemical effect) between oxygen and catalytic sites.…”

Li‐Ion Batteries and Beyond: Future Design Challenges

“…Catalysts act very important role to determine the reversible O 2 cathode reaction, which can modify the chemical reaction without being consumed itself, have been extensively studied in the fuel cell field for many years, so detailed mechanisms for oxygen reduction are available in the literature. [1,133,135,139] Noble metals and their alloys (e.g. Pt or Pt based catalyst) have high stability and excellent electrocatalytic activity, however, their scarcity and high cost are critical problems.…”