Polyol process: Combined modification and assessment of morphological changes in PEMFC bimetallic catalysts at all stages of research

• Published in: Journal of materials research 2023-10, Vol.38 (20), p.4595-4608
• Main Authors: Pavlets, Angelina, Alekseenko, Anastasia, Pankov, Ilya, Alekseenko, Danil, Nikulin, Alexey, Guterman, Vladimir
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Applied and Technical Physics; Bimetals; Biomaterials; Catalysts; Chemical synthesis; Chemistry and Materials Science; Inorganic Chemistry; Intermetallic compounds; Materials Engineering; Materials research; Materials Science; Nanoparticles; Nanotechnology
• ISSN: 0884-2914; 2044-5326
• DOI: 10.1557/s43578-023-01179-3

This study proposes using the modified polyol synthesis method to obtain state-of-the-art bimetallic catalysts for PEMFCs. One-step and multi-step implementation of the polyol process in an acceptable temperature range, without any hard-to-remove surfactants, requires no complex equipment and allows for the efficient reduction of precursors to nanoparticles. The high-performance catalysts based on the PtCu nanoparticles were obtained by the one-step strategy. These catalysts exhibited an excellent ORR activity that was twice as high as that of commercial Pt/C. The multi-step strategy was used to obtain the gradient-architecture PtCu nanoparticles with an increased stability during stress testing. HR-TEM, EDX, STEM, XRD, and TXRF were used for a detailed study of the catalysts’ microstructure. The key feature of this study consists in monitoring the materials’ characteristics at different stages of their evolution: from the moment of synthesizing them to the state corresponding to the completion of certain stages of the electrochemical measurements. Graphical abstract