Platinum+catalysts
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Platinum Catalyst Has Price Lowed and Durability Doubled
(Professor Cho in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering)
Professor EunAe Cho in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering reported a fuel cell catalyst that shows 12 times higher performance and twice the durability than previously used platinum catalyst.
Fuel cells, eco-friendly power generators, are said to be running air purifiers. A hydrogen vehicle powered by fuel cells can allegedly purify more than 98 percent of the particulate matter and ultrafine particles from the amount of air that 70 adults breathe.
Despite this peculiarity, the high price of platinum, which is used as an electrode catalyst, remains a big challenge to accelerating commercialization. In addition, recently developed ‘nano-structured platinum catalysts’ have not yet commercialized due to its meager oxygen reduction reaction and durability in fuel cell.
Addressing all those challenges, Professor Cho’s team reported a platinum catalyst costing 30 percent less but boasting 12 times higher performance.
The research team, to this end, combined the platinum with nickel, then applied various metallic elements for making the most efficient performance. Among others, they found that the addition of gallium can modulate the oxygen intermediate binding energy, leading to enhanced catalytic activity of the oxygen reduction reaction.
They made octahedron nanoparticle platinum-nickel alloy and could efficiently achieve 12-times high performance with the platinum catalyst by adding gallium to the surface of octahedron.
Existing fuel cell catalysts have issues in practical fuel cell applications. However, Professor Cho’s team experimentally proved the high performance of the catalyst even in the fuel cell, and is expected to be practically applied to the existing procedure.
First author JeongHoon Lim said their work demonstrates the gallium-added octahedral nanoparticles can be utilized as a highly active and durable oxygen reduction reaction catalyst in practical fuel cell applications. It will make it feasible for the mass production of the catalysts.
Professor Cho also said, “Our study realized the two main goals: an affordable price and increased performance of fuel cells. We hope this will make a contribution to the market competitiveness of fuel cell electric vehicles.”
This research was described in Nano Letters in April and was supported by the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP), the National Research Foundation (NRF), and the Agency for Defense Development (ADD).
(Figure: HAADF STEM images with EDX analyses and line scanning profiles of (a) Ga-PtNi/C and (b) PtNi/C during the voltage-cycling tests. The composition changes of Ni, Pt, and Ga atoms in the nanoparticles were determined by EDX (inset in the EDX mapping results)).
2018.05.15 View 6861 -
Platinum Single Atom Catalysts for 'Direct Formic Acid Fuel Cells'
(Professor Hyunjoo Lee (left) and Ph.D. candidate Jiwhan Kim)
A research team co-led by Professor Hyunjoo Lee at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at KAIST and Professor Jeong Woo Han from the University of Seoul synthesized highly stable high-Pt-content single atom catalysts for direct formic acid fuel cells. The amount of platinum can be reduced to 1/10 of that of conventional platinum nanoparticle catalysts.
Platinum (Pt) catalysts have been used in various catalytic reactions due to their high activity and stability. However, because Pt is rare and expensive, it is important to reduce the amount of Pt used. Pt single atom catalysts can reduce the size of the Pt particles to the size of an atom. Thus, the cost of Pt catalysts can be minimized because all of the Pt atoms can participate in the catalytic reactions. Additionally, single atom catalysts have no ensemble site in which two or more atoms are attached, and thus, the reaction selectivity is different from that of nanoparticle catalysts.
Despite these advantages, single atom catalysts are easily aggregated and less stable due to their low coordination number and high surface free energy. It is difficult to develop a single atom catalyst with high content and high stability, and thus, its application in practical devices is limited.
Direct formic acid fuel cells can be an energy source for next-generation portable devices because liquid formic acid as a fuel is safer and easier to store and transport than high-pressure hydrogen gas.
To improve the stability of Pt single atom catalysts, Professor Lee’s group developed a Pt-Sn single atom alloy structure on an antimony-doped tin oxide (ATO) support. This structure has been proven by computational calculations which show that Pt single atoms substitute antimony sites in the antimony-tin alloy structure and are thermodynamically stable. This catalyst has been shown to have a higher activity up to 50 times per weight of Pt than that of the commercial catalyst, Pt/C, in the oxidation of formic acid, and the stability of the catalyst was also remarkably high.
Professor Lee’s group also used a single atomic catalyst in a 'direct formic acid fuel cell’ consisting of membranes and electrodes. It is the first attempt to apply a single atomic catalyst to a full cell. In this case, an output similar to that of the commercial catalyst could be obtained by using 1/10 of the platinum compared to the commercial Pt/C catalyst.
Ph.D. candidate Jiwhan Kim from KAIST was the first author of the research. This research was published online on September 11 in Advanced Energy Materials.
This research was carried out with the support of the Samsung Electronics Future Technology Development Center.
(Figure 1. Concept photograph for Pt single atom catalysts.)
(Figure 2. Pt single atom catalysts by HAADF-STEM analysis (bright white circles))
2017.10.31 View 6959