Core/Shell‐Structured Carbon Support Boosting Fuel Cell Durability
Abstract
Abstract To enhance the lifetime of proton exchange membrane fuel cells, developing highly durable platinum‐based cathode catalysts is essential. While two degradation pathways for the cathode catalyst—carbon corrosion and electrocatalyst (platinum nanoparticles) coarsening—have been identified, current approaches to enhance its durability are limited to addressing individual degradation pathways. Herein, the study develops a core/shell‐structured carbon support that is designed to afford cathode catalysts capable of simultaneously inhibiting carbon corrosion and electrocatalyst coarsening. The core/shell structure is distinguished by its bifunctional nature: the core is made of highly graphitized carbon tailored to build a robust carbon skeleton, and the shell comprises heteroatom‐doped amorphous carbon engineered to prevent electrocatalyst coarsening by chemical/physical anchoring of platinum nanoparticles. Thanks to this elaborate design, the catalyst surpasses the durability targets for carbon supports and electrocatalysts set by the U.S. Department of Energy, as supported by the achieved durability metrics after the square‐wave/triangle‐wave accelerated stress tests: electrochemical surface area loss at 13%/3%, mass activity loss at 27%/17%, and voltage loss of 29 mV (at 0.8 A cm − 2 )/4 mV (at 1.5 A cm − 2 ).
Article Details
Authors (13)
Tian‐Wei Song
Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale Department of Chemistry University of Science and Technology of China Hefei China
Jia‐Jun Yan
Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale Department of Chemistry University of Science and Technology of China Hefei 230026 China
Lei Tong
Zi‐Rui Li
Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale Department of Chemistry University of Science and Technology of China Hefei China
Chang‐Song Ma
Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale Department of Chemistry University of Science and Technology of China Hefei China
Jun‐Jie Li
Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale Department of Chemistry University of Science and Technology of China Hefei China
Cong Xu
Department of Statistics and Data Science, College of Science
Shuai Li
Ru‐Yang Shao
Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale Department of Chemistry University of Science and Technology of China Hefei China
Ming Zuo
Instruments Center for Physical Science
Sheng‐Liang Zhong
Key Lab of Porous Functional Materials of Jiangxi Province, College of Chemistry and Materials Jiangxi Normal University Nanchang 330022 China
Sheng‐Qi Chu
Institute of High Energy Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 100049 China
Hai‐Wei Liang
Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale Department of Chemistry University of Science and Technology of China Hefei China