Promoting ordering degree of intermetallic fuel cell catalysts by low-melting-point metal doping

Ru-Yang Shao; Xiao-Chu Xu; Zhen-Hua Zhou; Wei-Jie Zeng; Tian-Wei Song; Peng Yin; Ang Li; Chang-Song Ma; Lei Tong; Yuan Kong; Hai-Wei Liang

doi:10.1038/s41467-023-41590-2

Promoting ordering degree of intermetallic fuel cell catalysts by low-melting-point metal doping

Nat Commun. 2023 Sep 22;14(1):5896. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-41590-2.

Authors

Ru-Yang Shao^#¹, Xiao-Chu Xu^#², Zhen-Hua Zhou², Wei-Jie Zeng², Tian-Wei Song², Peng Yin¹, Ang Li², Chang-Song Ma², Lei Tong^{1

2}, Yuan Kong^{3

4}, Hai-Wei Liang^{5

6}

Affiliations

¹ Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
² Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
³ Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China. kongyuan@ustc.edu.cn.
⁴ Department of Chemical Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China. kongyuan@ustc.edu.cn.
⁵ Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China. hwliang@ustc.edu.cn.
⁶ Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China. hwliang@ustc.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Carbon supported intermetallic compound nanoparticles with high activity and stability are promising cathodic catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction in proton-exchange-membrane fuel cells. However, the synthesis of intermetallic catalysts suffers from large diffusion barrier for atom ordering, resulting in low ordering degree and limited performance. We demonstrate a low-melting-point metal doping strategy for the synthesis of highly ordered L1₀-type M-doped PtCo (M = Ga, Pb, Sb, Cu) intermetallic catalysts. We find that the ordering degree of the M-doped PtCo catalysts increases with the decrease of melting point of M. Theoretic studies reveal that the low-melting-point metal doping can decrease the energy barrier for atom diffusion. The prepared highly ordered Ga-doped PtCo catalyst exhibits a large mass activity of 1.07 A mg_Pt^-1 at 0.9 V in H₂-O₂ fuel cells and a rated power density of 1.05 W cm^-2 in H₂-air fuel cells, with a Pt loading of 0.075 mg_Pt cm^-2.