Chinese Journal of Catalysis ›› 2023, Vol. 45: 17-26.DOI: 10.1016/S1872-2067(22)64165-2

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Design principle and synthetic approach of intermetallic Pt-M alloy oxygen reduction catalysts for fuel cells

Xuan Liu, Jiashun Liang, Qing Li()   

  1. State Key Laboratory of Material Processing and Die & Mould Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China
  • Received:2022-07-03 Accepted:2022-08-14 Online:2023-02-18 Published:2023-01-10
  • Contact: Qing Li
  • About author:Qing Li is a professor of School of Materials Science and Engineering in Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), China. He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Peking University in 2010 and then worked as a postdoctoral research associate consecutively at Los Alamos National Laboratory (2011-2013) and Brown University (2013-2015). He joined HUST as a full professor in 2016. He has published more than 160 peer-reviewed papers. His research interests include functional nanomaterials and their applications in electrocatalysis, PEM fuel cells and batteries.
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China(22122202);National Natural Science Foundation of China(21972051)

Abstract:

Developing high-performance Pt-M (M = transition metal) intermetallic alloy catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) are key to achieving large-scale applications of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). It is urgent to clarify the general rules to design and prepare intermetallic Pt-M catalysts with high ORR activity and stability. In this account, the basic principles for disorder-order phase transition in terms of thermodynamics and kinetics are first introduced and our recent efforts in synthesizing fully-ordered Pt-M intermetallic nanocrystals (iNCs) with well-defined L10-ordering structures are described. Then the effective strategies for further enhancing the activity and stability of L10-Pt-M ORR catalysts for PEMFCs are exemplified. We hope that this account will provide some significant insights into the research and development of intermetallic Pt-M alloy ORR catalysts for the applications of PEMFCs and other electrochemical energy conversion technologies in the future.

Key words: Fuel cell, Oxygen reduction reaction, Pt-based alloy catalyst, Intermetallics, L10-ordered structure