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Updated: Oct 18, 2025
On the Preparation and Testing of Fuel Cell Catalysts Using the Thin Film Rotating Disk Electrode Method
Published on: March 16, 2018
How to appropriately assess the oxygen reduction reaction activity of platinum group metal catalysts with rotating
Yun-Fei Xia1,2, Pan Guo1, Jia-Zhan Li3
1MIIT Key Laboratory of Critical Materials Technology for New Energy Conversion and Storage, State Key Lab of Urban Water Resources and Environment, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China.
Abstract:
The sluggish oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) has becoming the bottleneck of largescale implementation of proton exchange membrane fuel cells. However, when it comes to the ORR activity assessing of platinum group metals (PGMs) with rotating disk electrode, the corresponding potential conversion vs. reversible hydrogen electrode, test protocols, and activity calculation processes are still in chaos in many published literatures. In this work, two standard calculation processes for PGM ORR activities are demonstrated, followed by a specification for the usage of reference electrodes. Then a 4-fold discrepancy in ORR activities obtained via different test protocols is found for the same Pt/C, and an average adsorption model and the "coverage effects" are proposed to illustrate the hysteresis loop between negative and positive-going ORR polarization plots. Finally, four motions over appropriate assessment of PGM ORR activity are emphasized, hoping to bring a fair communication platform for researchers from different groups.
