Ultralow-loading platinum-cobalt fuel cell catalysts derived from imidazolate frameworks

By L. Chong, J. Wen, J. Kubal, F. Sen, J. Zou, J. Greeley, Maria K. Y. Chan, H. Barkholtz, W. Ding, Di-Jia Liu. Science, 2018

865 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Combine and conquer Platinum (Pt)–group metals, which are scarce and expensive, are used for the demanding oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in hydrogen fuel cells. One competing approach for reducing their use is to create nanoparticles with earth-abundant metals to increase their activity and surface area; another is to replace them with metals such as cobalt (Co) in carbide or nitride sites. Chong et al. thermally activated a Co metal-organic framework compound to create ORR-active Co sites and then grew PtCo alloy nanoparticles on this substrate. The resulting catalyst had high activity and durability, despite its relatively low Pt content. Science, this issue p. 1276 Active cobalt sites and platinum-cobalt nanoparticles are combined in a highly active and durable oxygen reduction catalyst. Achieving high catalytic performance with the lowest possible amount of platinum is critical for fuel cell cost reduction. Here we describe a method of preparing highly active yet stable electrocatalysts containing ultralow-loading platinum content by using cobalt or bimetallic cobalt and zinc zeolitic imidazolate frameworks as precursors. Synergistic catalysis between strained platinum-cobalt core-shell nanoparticles over a platinum-group metal (PGM)–free catalytic substrate led to excellent fuel cell performance under 1 atmosphere of O2 or air at both high-voltage and high-current domains. Two catalysts achieved oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) mass activities of 1.08 amperes per milligram of platinum (A mgPt−1) and 1.77 A mgPt−1 and retained 64% and 15% of initial values after 30,000 voltage cycles in a fuel cell. Computational modeling reveals that the interaction between platinum-cobalt nanoparticles and PGM-free sites improves ORR activity and durability.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b4ad5ecf6a021ad48878ce907f09b598e2169c69

How researchers see this paper

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In Electrical and Electronic Engineering

1. Yanghua He
2. Mengjie Chen
3. J. Spendelow
4. Gang Wu
5. Yao Wang
6. Yadong Li
7. Dingsheng Wang

In Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

1. Yadong Li
2. Yanghua He
3. Dingsheng Wang
4. Mengjie Chen
5. J. Spendelow
6. Gang Wu
7. Yao Wang

Citations in the corpus

• Atomically Dispersed Metal Catalysts for Oxygen Reduction (2019, background): “To effectively evaluate the stability of the atomically dispersed metal site catalysts in PEMFCs, establishment of appropriate accelerated stress test (AST) is necessary.”
• A fundamental comprehension and recent progress in advanced Pt‐based ORR nanocatalysts (2021, methodology): “Liu's group documented a strategy of fabricating highly active and stable ORR electrocatalyst with ultralow‐loading Pt usage by carbonization of Co‐containing Zn‐based zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (Figure 10G,H).(126) This catalyst shows an exceptional mass activity of 8.”