Issue 24/2018 - Ternary nanowire catalysts help fuel cells reduce costs

Professor Zeng Jie's research group of University of Science and Technology of China and Professor Huang Hongwen of Hunan University have recently developed a cathode catalyst
for proton exchange membrane fuel cells with excellent catalytic activity and stability.

Reducing the amount of precious metal platinum catalyst in proton exchange membrane fuel cells is of great significance
for its popularization and application.
Improving the mass activity and catalytic stability of platinum-based catalysts in redox reactions is a way to
reduce the amount of precious metal platinum.
However, the stability of most catalysts is insufficient
.
By finely adjusting the dimension, size and composition of platinum-based catalysts, researchers developed ultra-fine platinum-nickel-rhodium ternary metal nanowire catalysts
.
The diameter of the nanowire is only 1 nanometer, and the ratio of platinum atoms to the total platinum atoms on the surface is more than 50%, which shows ultra-high atomic utilization and provides a structural basis
for high catalytic mass activity.

Redox catalytic tests show that the mass activity of the nanowire catalyst is 15.
2 times
that of the current commercial platinum-carbon nanocatalysts.
At the same time, after 10,000 cycles under oxygen atmosphere, only 12.
8% of the mass activity performance of this catalyst was lost.
At present, commercial carbon-supported platinum nanocatalysts are used under the same conditions, and the loss of mass activity performance reaches 73.
7%.