Ternary Pt Alloy Catalysts and Carbon Modified Supports for Low Pt Loaded Fuel Cell Cathodes

Abstract

The sluggish kinetics of the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) at the cathode of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) and the harsh environment pose challenges on the development of cheap, active and stable catalysts. As a consequence, Pt catalysts are the most utilized catalysts in commercial PEMFC stacks for automotive applications. While the progress in the recent years allowed a considerable decrease of Pt loadings (from 0.4-0.8 to ~0.1 mgPt cm-2), other challenges emerged at such and lower Pt loadings at high current densities.1 For example, octahedral PtNi nanoparticles have been reported to achieve extremely high mass activity in rotating disk electrode (RDE) experiments2 and the introduction of a third metal as surface dopant has been shown to have beneficial effects on the RDE performance.3 Despite these promising steps toward shape-stable PtNiX octahedral nanoparticles, the morphological stability and the performance in membrane electrode assembly (MEA)-based fuel cell measurements still need to be improved to match and surpass the state of the art Pt and dealloyed Pt-alloy catalysts.4 In this contribution we will show our recent efforts in improving the performance of PtNi based octahedral nanoparticle catalysts towards integration in low Pt loading cathodes for PEMFC. In particular, two strategies will be presented. First, Rh surface doping is introduced to improve the morphological stability. Second, new carbon modified supports by nitrogen plasma treatment have been investigated. References A. Kongkanand and M. F. Mathias, J Phys Chem Lett, 2016, 7, 1127-1137. P. Strasser, Science, 2015, 349, 379-380. X. Q. Huang, Z. P. Zhao, L. Cao, Y. Chen, E. B. Zhu, Z. Y. Lin, M. F. Li, A. M. Yan, A. Zettl, Y. M. Wang, X. F. Duan, T. Mueller and Y. Huang, Science, 2015, 348, 1230-1234. F. Dionigi, C. C. Weber, M. Primbs, M. Gocyla, A. M. Bonastre, C. Spöri, H. Schmies, E. Hornberger, S. Kühl, J. Drnec, M. Heggen, J. Sharman, R. E. Dunin-Borkowski and P. Strasser, Nano Lett, 2019, 19, 6876-6885. Acknowledgements The GAIA project has received funding from the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen 2 Joint Undertaking under grant agreement No 826097. This Joint Undertaking receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, Hydrogen Europe and Hydrogen Europe Research. Figure 1. Mass activity from RDE measurements as a function of the electrochemically active surface area obtained by hydrogen under potential deposition, before (black) and after (red) stability tests. The blue arrow and the percentage indicate the loss after stability tests. Pt/Cv and Oh-PtNiMo/Cv data from ref.4. Figure 1