Tungsten-Doped L10 -PtCo Ultrasmall Nanoparticles as a High-Performance Fuel Cell Cathode

Jiashun Liang; Na Li; Zhonglong Zhao; Liang Ma; Xiaoming Wang; Shenzhou Li; Xuan Liu; Tanyuan Wang; Yaping Du; Gang Lu; Jiantao Han; Yunhui Huang; Dong Su; Qing Li

doi:10.1002/anie.201908824

Tungsten-Doped L1₀ -PtCo Ultrasmall Nanoparticles as a High-Performance Fuel Cell Cathode

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2019 Oct 21;58(43):15471-15477. doi: 10.1002/anie.201908824. Epub 2019 Sep 17.

Authors

Jiashun Liang¹, Na Li^{2

3}, Zhonglong Zhao^{4

5}, Liang Ma⁶, Xiaoming Wang⁷, Shenzhou Li¹, Xuan Liu¹, Tanyuan Wang¹, Yaping Du⁸, Gang Lu⁴, Jiantao Han¹, Yunhui Huang¹, Dong Su^{2

9}, Qing Li¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Material Processing and Die & Mould Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, 430074, China.
² Center for Functional Nanomaterials, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, 11973, USA.
³ Frontier Institute of Chemistry, Frontier Institute of Science and Technology jointly with College of Science, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shanxi, 710054, China.
⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, California State University, Northridge, CA, 91330, USA.
⁵ Current address: School of Physical Science and Technology, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, 010021, China.
⁶ Faculty of Materials Science and Chemistry, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, Hubei, 430074, China.
⁷ College of Materials Science and Engineering, Changsha University of Science and Technology, Changsha, 410114, China.
⁸ School of Materials Science and Engineering & National Institute for Advanced Materials, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300350, China.
⁹ Current address: Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China.

PMID: 31464077
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201908824

Abstract

The commercialization of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) relies on highly active and stable electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in acid media. The most successful catalysts for this reaction are nanostructured Pt-alloy with a Pt-skin. The synthesis of ultrasmall and ordered L1₀ -PtCo nanoparticle ORR catalysts further doped with a few percent of metals (W, Ga, Zn) is reported. Compared to commercial Pt/C catalyst, the L1₀ -W-PtCo/C catalyst shows significant improvement in both initial activity and high-temperature stability. The L1₀ -W-PtCo/C catalyst achieves high activity and stability in the PEMFC after 50 000 voltage cycles at 80 °C, which is superior to the DOE 2020 targets. EXAFS analysis and density functional theory calculations reveal that W doping not only stabilizes the ordered intermetallic structure, but also tunes the Pt-Pt distances in such a way to optimize the binding energy between Pt and O intermediates on the surface.

Keywords: electrocatalysis; fuel cells; nanoparticles; oxygen reduction; phase transformation.

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Review

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