New Ternary Fuel Cell Catalysts for DMFC Anodes

New Ternary Fuel Cell Catalysts for DMFC Anodes 

The primary and secondary electrochemical workflows presented above have been successfully validated and applied to the development of new compositions for fuel cell catalysts, specifically to the search for more active ternary and higher-order catalyst compositions for the electrochemical oxidation of methanol in acidic solutions [18, 19]. Some results of this study are now illustrated. 

Over the past 35 years, much has been learned about the electrooxidation of methanol on the surface of noble metals and metal alloys, in particular platinum and ruthenium [2, 4, 6, 7]. Significant overpotential losses occur in the reaction due to poisoning of the alloy catalyst surface by carbon monoxide. Yet, Pt-based metal alloys are still the most popular catalyst materials in the development of new fuel cell electrocatalysts, based on the expectation that a more CO-tolerant methanol catalyst will be developed. The vast ternary composition space beyond Pt-Ru catalysts has not been adequately explored. This section demonstrates how the ternary space can be explored using the high-throughput, electrocatalyst workflow described above. 

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New Ternary Fuel Cell Catalysts for DMFC Anodes I 285... 

This chapter presents the design and application of a two-stage combinatorial and high-throughput screening electrochemical workflow for the development of new fuel cell electrocatalysts. First, a brief description of combinatorial methodologies in electrocatalysis is presented. Then, the primary and secondary electrochemical workflows are described in detail. Finally, a case study on ternary methanol oxidation catalysts for DMFC anodes illustrates the application of the workflow to fuel cell research. 

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