Pt-Based ORR Catalyst on Carbon-Supported Amorphous Niobium Oxide Support

The ORR catalyst for PEMFC needs to be improved in terms of catalytic activity, stability, and reduction of Pt loading to be viable for fuel cell vehicle applications. A drawback of state-of-the-art dispersed platinum nanoparticles on carbon is the corrosion of carbon in the PEMFC vehicle under operation conditions, which also exacerbates the agglomeration of Pt nano-particles. This results in a limited life of the vehicular fuel cell. Conductive metal oxide supported Pt-based ORR catalysts nanoparticles have been studied extensively and showed improved electrochemical stability and catalytic activity through d-band interaction [1,2,3]. However, crystalline conductive metal oxides such as NbO and NbO2 are not stable in the fuel cell [1]. This work uses a carbon-supported amorphous conductive metal oxide as Pt-based catalyst support for ORR in PEMFC. Amorphous conductive metal oxides have neither grain boundaries, nor the long-range atomic order to be easily transformed into insulating crystalline structure, i.e. amorphous conductive metal oxides are resistant to oxygen incorporation, thus preserving the structural stability and electric conductivity.