Evidence for high performances of low Pt loading electrodes based on capped platinum electrocatalyst and carbon nanotubes in fuel cell devices

Recently we reported the preparation and electrochemical behaviour of porous electrodes based on the controlled combination of carbon nanotubes and capped platinum nanoparticles towards oxygen reduction. Due to the organic crown of the nanoparticles, the electrodes exhibited low hydrogen underpotent...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Electrochimica acta 2010-02, Vol.55 (7), p.2358-2362
Main Authors: Perez, H., Morin, A., Akrour, L., Cremona, C., Baret, B., Haccoun, J., Escribano, S., Etcheberry, A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied sciences
Capped electrocatalyst
Capping
Carbon nanotubes
Chemical Sciences
Devices
Electrocatalysts
Electrodes
Energy
Energy. Thermal use of fuels
Equipments for energy generation and conversion: thermal, electrical, mechanical energy, etc
Exact sciences and technology
Fuel cells
Nanoparticles
or physical chemistry
Oxygen reduction
Platinum
Theoretical and
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Summary:Recently we reported the preparation and electrochemical behaviour of porous electrodes based on the controlled combination of carbon nanotubes and capped platinum nanoparticles towards oxygen reduction. Due to the organic crown of the nanoparticles, the electrodes exhibited low hydrogen underpotential deposition (H upd) electroactive surface areas but significant activity towards oxygen reduction was recorded down to very low platinum loadings of few μg/cm 2. While the presence of organic stabilizing material, at the surface of the electrocatalyst synthesized by wet chemistry, may be considered as a potential drawback in fuel cell community, we present in this paper results showing that our capped electrocatalyst associated with carbon nanotubes can be used without any pre-treatment and exhibit high performances in fuel cell devices, in spite of low platinum loadings. Beyond the practical interest of such capped nanoparticles in fuel cell technology demonstrated here, fundamental question related to the high performances of the capped electrocatalyst are still opened and are currently under investigation.
ISSN:0013-4686
1873-3859
DOI:10.1016/j.electacta.2009.11.090