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Effects of Mesoporosity and Conductivity of Hierarchically Porous Carbon Supports on the Deposition of Pt Nanoparticles and Their Performance as Electrocatalysts for Oxygen Reduction Reaction in Alkaline Media.

Authors :
Potsi G
Tsai YJ
Reese A
Yoon D
Hitt JL
Kouloumpis A
Suntivich J
Muller DA
Mallouk TE
Giannelis EP
Source :
ACS applied materials & interfaces [ACS Appl Mater Interfaces] 2023 Jul 12; Vol. 15 (27), pp. 33028-33036. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Jun 27.
Publication Year :
2023

Abstract

The structural characteristics of supports, such as surface area and type of porosity, affect the deposition of electrocatalysts and greatly influence their electrochemical performance in fuel cells. In this work, we use a series of high surface area hierarchical porous carbons (HPCs) with defined mesoporosity as model supports to study the deposition mechanism of Pt nanoparticles. The resulting electrocatalysts are characterized by several analytical techniques, and their electrochemical performance is compared to a state-of-the-art, commercial Pt/C system. Despite the similar chemical composition and surface area of the supports, as well as similar amounts of Pt precursor used, the size of the deposited Pt nanoparticles varies, and it is inversely proportional to the mesopore size of the system. In addition, we show that an increase in the size of the catalyst particles can increase the specific activity of the oxygen reduction reaction. We also report on our efforts to improve the overall performance of the above electrocatalyst systems and show that increasing the electronic conductivity of the carbon support by the addition of highly conductive graphene sheets improves the overall performance of an alkaline fuel cell.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
1944-8252
Volume :
15
Issue :
27
Database :
MEDLINE
Journal :
ACS applied materials & interfaces
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
37368963
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.3c01935