Abstract
Carbonaceous materials are the most common catalyst supports in proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFCs), yet their corrosion is one of the limiting factors in achieving high durability. Herein, we doped carbon supports with boron (B) to increase the corrosion-resistance of the support. Two types of B-doped carbons were synthesized and studied as platinum support materials. They varied in their morphologies, surface areas, and the types of boron species. The durability of Pt/B-doped carbon catalysts was investigated using the US-DOE catalysts’ supports accelerated stress test (AST) and a mass-spectrometer connected to the fuel cell effluent stream to quantify the mass of corroded carbon support in operando. The addition of boron to the carbon increased the stability of Pt catalysts in long-term usage of PEMFC. After 4000 AST cycles, more than 50 % of initial current density was preserved for the boron-containing systems, while less than 30 % of it remained with Vulcan carbon (Pt/V). Also, the Pt/B-doped carbon samples demonstrated better electrochemical active surface area (ECSA) stability when compared to Pt/V. Carbon loss measurements showed that B-doped carbons have higher resistance to electrochemical corrosion than unmodified carbon. Specifically, the substitutional boron-doped carbon demonstrated an extremely high stability and low corrosion rate.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 119290 |
| Journal | Carbon |
| Volume | 227 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 30 2024 |
Funding
The authors would like to thank the Israeli Ministry of Energy, The Israeli Ministry of Science, and the Israel Science foundation for the financial support. STEM-EELS research was conducted as part of a user project at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS), which is a US Department of Energy, Office of Science User Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The authors would like thank Denis Zolotaryov and Michael Kazakin form the Israel Institute of Materials Manufacturing Technologies, Technion, Israel, for their help with the high temperature synthesis. The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Lior Elbaz reports was provided by Bar-Ilan University. Lior Elbaz reports a relationship with Bar-Ilan University that includes: employment. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.The authors would like to thank the Israeli Ministry of Energy, The Israeli Ministry of Science, and the Israel Science foundation for the financial support. STEM-EELS research was conducted as part of a user project at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS), which is a US Department of Energy, Office of Science User Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The authors would like thank Denis Zolotaryov and Michael Kazakin form the Israel Institute of Materials Manufacturing Technologies, Technion, Israel, for their help with the high temperature synthesis.