High performance platinum single atom electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction

Jing Liu; Menggai Jiao; Lanlu Lu; Heather M Barkholtz; Yuping Li; Ying Wang; Luhua Jiang; Zhijian Wu; Di-Jia Liu; Lin Zhuang; Chao Ma; Jie Zeng; Bingsen Zhang; Dangsheng Su; Ping Song; Wei Xing; Weilin Xu; Ying Wang; Zheng Jiang; Gongquan Sun

doi:10.1038/ncomms15938

High performance platinum single atom electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction

Nat Commun. 2017 Jul 24:8:15938. doi: 10.1038/ncomms15938.

Authors

Jing Liu^{1

2}, Menggai Jiao^{2

3}, Lanlu Lu⁴, Heather M Barkholtz⁵, Yuping Li⁶, Ying Wang⁷, Luhua Jiang⁶, Zhijian Wu³, Di-Jia Liu⁵, Lin Zhuang⁷, Chao Ma⁸, Jie Zeng⁸, Bingsen Zhang⁹, Dangsheng Su^{9

10}, Ping Song¹, Wei Xing¹, Weilin Xu¹, Ying Wang², Zheng Jiang⁴, Gongquan Sun⁶

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Jilin Province Key Laboratory of Low Carbon Chemical Power, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 5625 Renmin Street, Changchun 130022, China.
² University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Resource Utilization, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, China.
⁴ Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201204, China.
⁵ Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA.
⁶ Division of Fuel Cell and Battery, Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian 116023, China.
⁷ College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, Hubei Key Lab of Electrochemical Power Sources, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China.
⁸ Department of Chemical Physics, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
⁹ Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China.
¹⁰ Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, Faradayweg 4-6, Berlin 14195, Germany.

Abstract

For the large-scale sustainable implementation of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells in vehicles, high-performance electrocatalysts with low platinum consumption are desirable for use as cathode material during the oxygen reduction reaction in fuel cells. Here we report a carbon black-supported cost-effective, efficient and durable platinum single-atom electrocatalyst with carbon monoxide/methanol tolerance for the cathodic oxygen reduction reaction. The acidic single-cell with such a catalyst as cathode delivers high performance, with power density up to 680 mW cm^-2 at 80 °C with a low platinum loading of 0.09 mg_Pt cm^-2, corresponding to a platinum utilization of 0.13 g_Pt kW^-1 in the fuel cell. Good fuel cell durability is also observed. Theoretical calculations reveal that the main effective sites on such platinum single-atom electrocatalysts are single-pyridinic-nitrogen-atom-anchored single-platinum-atom centres, which are tolerant to carbon monoxide/methanol, but highly active for the oxygen reduction reaction.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't