Huge Instability of Pt/C Catalysts in Alkaline Medium

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• 作者：Anicet Zadick ; Laetitia Dubau ; Nicolas Sergent ; Gr茅gory Berthom茅 ; Marian Chatenet
• 刊名：ACS Catalysis
• 出版年：2015
• 出版时间：August 7, 2015
• 年：2015
• 卷：5
• 期：8
• 页码：4819-4824
• 全文大小：545K
• ISSN：2155-5435

文摘

The stability of carbon-supported electrocatalysts has been largely investigated in acidic electrolytes, but the literature is much scarcer regarding similar stability studies in alkaline medium. Herein, the degradation of Vulcan XC-72-supported platinum nanoparticles (noted Pt/C), a state-of-the-art proton exchange membrane fuel cell electrocatalyst, is investigated in alkaline medium by combining electrochemical measurements and identical location transmission electron microscopy; electrochemical surface area (ECSA) losses were bridged to electrocatalyst morphological changes. The results demonstrate that the degradation in 0.1 M NaOH at 25 掳C is severe (60% of ECSA loss after only 150 cycles between 0.1 and 1.23 V vs RHE), which is about 3 times worse than in acidic media for this soft accelerated stress test. Severe carbon corrosion has been ruled out according to Raman spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements, and it seems that the chemistry of the carbon support (in particular, the interface (chemical bounding)) between the Pt nanoparticles and their carbon substrate does play a significant role in the observed degradations.