Origin of the Enhanced Catalytic Activity of Carbon Nanocoil-Supported PtRu Alloy Electrocatalysts

Abstract

The origin of the excellent electrocatalytic performance of PtRu alloy catalysts supported on newly synthesized carbon nanocoil supports was investigated. Among three commercially available carbon materialsVulcan XC-72, multiwall carbon nanotube, and activated carbon, the Vulcan XC-72-supported catalyst exhibited the best catalytic performance. Carbon nanocoils with variable surface areas and crystallinity were employed as the supports for 60 wt % Pt/Ru (1:1) catalysts. The catalysts supported on all these three carbon nanocoils exhibited better electrocatalytic performance compared to the catalyst supported on Vulcan XC-72 carbon. In particular, the PtRu alloy catalyst supported on CNC-2, which has both good crystallinity and a large surface area, showed a superior electrocatalytic performance, compared to the catalysts supported on CNC-1 and CNC-3 carbons.

Nitrogen-doped carbon xerogel: A novel carbon-based electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction in proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells

“…Pt/C) have been considered as the most effective elecrocatalysts for ORR in PEM fuel cells due to their high activities and good stabilities. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] However, the issues of high cost, scarce sources and long-term durability limit their large-scale production and hinder the commercialization of PEM fuel cells. [10][11][12][13][14] In order to decrease the cost of electrocatalysts and eliminate their dependence on noble metals, various non-noble metal catalysts have been explored recently as alternatives to the Pt-based electrocatalysts, which include chalcogenide catalysts, [15][16][17][18][19] transition metal macrocyclic compounds, [20][21][22] transition metallic oxides [23][24][25][26][27] and carbon-based catalysts.…”

Nitrogen-doped graphene with enhanced oxygen reduction activity produced by pyrolysis of graphene functionalized with imidazole derivatives

“…In addition to above mentioned materials, other types of CNMs have been applied as support for electrocatalysts such as mesoporous carbon [24], carbon aerogels [25], carbon nanohorns [26], nanocoils [27] and etc. As they are out of the scope of this thesis, they are not described in details…”

Synthesis of graphitic mesoporous carbons with different surface areas and their use in direct methanol fuel cells

“…Vulcan XC-72 carbon black with high specific surface area (245 m 2 g À1 ) is most widely used as supports for fuel cell electrocatalysts. The high surface area of Vulcan [11][12][13], carbon nanofibers [14][15][16], ordered mesoporous carbons [17][18][19], carbon nanocoils [20,21], nitrogen-modified carbon supports [22,23], and graphene [4,24,25], have attracted much interest as electrocatalyst supports for fuel cell applications because of their good electrical conductivities and versatilities in pore sizes and distributions. Very recently, we have reported a novel but simple method to synthesize graphitic mesoporous carbon (GMC) by introducing trisodium citrate as a complexing agent for iron ions which is a graphitization catalyst during the synthesis procedure [26].…”