Abstract
Rational designing of catalysts to promote the sluggish kinetics of the cathode oxygen reduction reaction in proton exchange membrane fuel cells is still challenging, yet of crucial importance to its commercial application. In this work, on the basis of theoretical DFT calculations which suggest that order structured fct-phased PtFe (O-PtFe) with an atomic Pt shell exhibits superior electrocatalytic performance towards the ORR, the desired structure was prepared by using a scalable impregnation-reduction method. The as-prepared O-PtFe delivered enhanced activity (0.68 A mg-1Pt) and stability (73% activity retention after 10000 potential cycles) compared with the corresponding disordered PtFe alloy (D-PtFe) and Pt. To confirm the excellent durability, in situ X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy was conducted to probe the local and electronic structure changes of O-PtFe during 10000 cycle accelerated durability testing. We hope that this facile synthesis method and the in situ XAFS experiment could be readily adapted to other catalyst systems, facilitating the screening of highly efficient ORR catalysts for fuel cell application.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 20301-20306 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Nanoscale |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue number | 42 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2019 Nov 14 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation (21573083), 1000 Young Talent (to Deli Wang) and the Innovation Research Funds of Huazhong University of Science and Technology (2017KFYXJJ164). We thank the Analytical and Testing Center of Huazhong University of Science and Technology for its facilities and help. The S/TEM and computational work was carried out at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, Brookhaven National Laboratory, which was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contract No. DE-SC0012704. The XAFS research used beamline 8-ID of the National Synchrotron Light Source II, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Brookhaven National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-SC0012704. M. X. Gong is grateful for the scholarship supported by the China Scholarship Council (CSC) (201706160151).
Funding Information:
This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation (21573083), 1000 Young Talent (to Deli Wang) and the Innovation Research Funds of Huazhong University of Science and Technology (2017KFYXJJ164).
Publisher Copyright:
© The Royal Society of Chemistry 2019.
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Materials Science(all)