High Performance Transition-Metal Doped PtNi Catalysts
SUMMARY
Researchers led by Yu Huang from the Department of Material Science and Engineering at UCLA have developed a novel oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalyst by doping platinum-nickel octahedrals with transition metals.
BACKGROUND
Fuel cells depend upon electrochemical reactions at the positive and negative terminals, and depend on catalysts to make these reactions more efficient. Oxygen reduction reaction catalysts often use platinum-carbon materials. The commercial viability of fuel cells needs to overcome a few challenges: 1) expensive cost of platinum 2) sluggish activity of ORR 3) low durability of catalysts. Recently, platinum-nickel (PtNi) octahedral configurations have been of interest due to their theoretically greater activity, but their theoretical activities have yet to be achieved and suffer from low durability.
INNOVATION
Researchers led by Yu Huang from the Department of Material Science and Engineering at UCLA have developed a novel ORR catalyst by doping platinum-nickel octahedrals with transition metals. This new catalyst has demonstrated substantially improved stability for 8000 potential cycles. The doping with transition metals has also led greater ORR activity with an 81-fold increase in activity per cm2 and a 73-fold increase in activity per mg of platinum used over commercially available platinum-carbon catalysts.
APPLICATIONS
ADVANTAGES
RELATED MATERIALS