Mass production of a dealloyed Pt3Co/C catalyst for oxygen reduction catalysis in PEMFCs

Abstract

The proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) has been considered as one of the most promising energy conversion devices to relieve the environment and energy crises, while its achievement requires large-scale produced, active and stable platinum (Pt)-based catalysts for efficient oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Based on the multiple advantages of Pt–cobalt (Co)-based catalysts, in this work, we successfully develop a robust mass production method of dealloyed Pt₃Co/C (D-Pt₃Co/C), which can be used as an efficient ORR catalyst in a practical PEMFC medium. A batch of D-Pt₃Co/C can readily reach 1.43 g with a high Pt yield of 97%, and even a stable preparation of 10.2 g of catalyst was achieved. This large-scale production method can be further applied to prepare a series of ternary, quaternary and even quinary Pt₃Co-based catalysts. More importantly, D-Pt₃Co/C not only shows a mass activity of 1.01 A mg_Pt⁻¹ for the ORR, 7.7 and 4.7 times larger than those of home-made Pt/C and commercial Pt/C, but also exhibits high power densities of 1960 mW cm⁻² and 727 mW cm⁻² at 0.6 V cell voltage under H₂–O₂ and H₂–air conditions, respectively, demonstrating a class of efficient membrane electrode assembly catalysts for PEMFCs.