Advanced Functional Materials
Advanced Functional Materials
5 years ago

Ordered Porous Electrodes by Design: Toward Enhancing the Effective Utilization of Platinum in Electrocatalysis

Ordered Porous Electrodes by Design: Toward Enhancing the Effective Utilization of Platinum in Electrocatalysis
Byron D. Gates, Brandy K. Pilapil, Yoseif Makonnen, Gregory Jerkiewicz, Diane Beauchemin, Julia van Drunen
Platinum-nanoparticle-functionalized, ordered, porous support electrodes are prepared and characterized as a potential new class of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) electrocatalysts. This study aims to develop electrode materials that enhance the effective utilization of Pt in electrocatalytic reactions through improved mass transport properties, high Pt mass specific surface area, and increased Pt electrochemical stability. The electrodes are prepared using modular sacrificial templates, producing a uniform distribution of Pt nanoparticles inside ordered porous Au electrodes. This method can be further fine-tuned to optimize the architecture for a range of characteristics, such as varying nanoparticle properties, pore size, or support material. The Pt-coated Au, ordered, porous electrodes exhibit several improved characteristics, such as enhanced Pt effective utilization for ORR electrocatalysis. This includes a nearly twofold increase in Pt mass specific surface area over other ultrathin designs, superior mass transport properties in comparison to traditional catalyst layers of C black supported Pt nanoparticles mixed with ionomer, good methanol tolerance and exceptional stability toward Pt chemical and/or electrochemical dissolution through interfacial interactions with Au. The methods to prepare Pt-coated ordered porous electrodes can be extended to other architectures for enhanced catalyst utilization and improved performance of Pt in electrochemical processes. The preparation and electrocatalytic properties of Pt nanoparticles coated on ordered porous gold electrodes are demonstrated as a route to Pt electrocatalysts with enhanced effective utilization of Pt. These materials display good mass transport, high electrochemical stability, and a large Pt mass specific surface area in comparison to other ultrathin Pt electrocatalyst designs. The method established here for electrode preparation can be readily tuned to seek further correlations between electrocatalyst design and performance.

Publisher URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/resolve/doi

DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201703171

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.