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Synthesis of Platinum-nickel Nanowires and Optimization for Oxygen Reduction Performance
Published on: April 27, 2018
Alcohol-Tolerant Platinum Electrocatalyst for Oxygen Reduction by Encapsulating Platinum Nanoparticles inside
Liming Shen1, Tao Sun1, Ou Zhuo1
1Jiangsu Provincial Lab for Nanotechnology and Key Laboratory of Mesoscopic Chemistry of MOE, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University , Nanjing, Jiangsu 210046 China.
Abstract:
Pt-based electrocatalysts are the most popular for direct alcohol fuel cells, but their performances easily deteriorate for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) at the cathode because of the alcohol crossover effect. Herein, we report the novel Pt electrocatalyst encapsulated inside nitrogen-doped carbon nanocages (Pt@NCNC), which presents excellent alcohol-tolerant ORR activity and durability in acidic media, far superior to the Pt counterpart immobilized outside the nanocages (Pt/NCNC). The superb performance is correlated with the molecule-sieving effect of the micropores penetrating through the shells of the nanocages, which admit the small-sized oxygen and ions but block the large-sized alcohols into the nanocages. This mechanism is confirmed by examining the size dependence of ORR and alcohol oxidation activities by regulating the micropores sizes. This study provides a promising strategy to develop the superior alcohol-tolerant Pt-based ORR electrocatalyst in acidic media.
