High activity and durability of a Pt–Cu–Co ternary alloy electrocatalyst and its large-scale preparation for practical proton exchange membrane fuel cells

• Published in: Composites. Part B, Engineering Engineering, 2021-10, Vol.222, p.109082, Article 109082
• Main Authors: Hu, Bin, Yuan, Jinglin, Zhang, Jun, Shu, Qinghua, Guan, Daqin, Yang, Guangming, Zhou, Wei, Shao, Zongping
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Co-doping; Large-scale synthesis; ORR; PEMFCs; Pt–Cu–Co ternary alloy
• ISSN: 1359-8368; 1879-1069
• DOI: 10.1016/j.compositesb.2021.109082

The large-scale synthesis of catalysts with promising performance and durability for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is essential to the industrialization of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). Pt-based alloys prepared using the co-doping strategy have shown great promise. Herein, we report a co-doping tactic for producing high-performance Pt–Cu–Co ternary alloy catalysts on a mass scale. Cu and Co are doped into the material in one step and the co-doping of Cu and Co can optimize the electronic structure of Pt, thereby weakening the adsorption of oxygenated species with Pt to enhance ORR activity. The PtCu0·72Co0.01 and PtCu0·72Co0.01–10 g (scaled-up production) exhibit superior mass activity of 0.52 A mgPt−1 and 0.43 A mgPt−1, respectively, and peak power density in H2-Air conditions of 1.15 W cm−2 and 1.01 W cm−2. Furthermore, the mass activity of catalysts was only attenuated by 8.3% and 9.5% after 30,000 cycles, indicating reasonably good durability.