Premium
High‐Activity PtRuPd/C Catalyst for Direct Dimethyl Ether Fuel Cells
Author(s) -
Li Qing,
Wen Xiaodong,
Wu Gang,
Chung Hoon T.,
Gao Rui,
Zelenay Piotr
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
angewandte chemie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1521-3757
pISSN - 0044-8249
DOI - 10.1002/ange.201500454
Subject(s) - dimethyl ether , catalysis , ternary operation , electrocatalyst , methanol , electrolyte , electrochemistry , chemistry , direct ethanol fuel cell , chemical engineering , inorganic chemistry , proton exchange membrane fuel cell , organic chemistry , electrode , computer science , engineering , programming language
Dimethyl ether (DME) has been considered as a promising alternative fuel for direct‐feed fuel cells but lack of an efficient DME oxidation electrocatalyst has remained the challenge for the commercialization of the direct DME fuel cell. The commonly studied binary PtRu catalyst shows much lower activity in DME than methanol oxidation. In this work, guided by density functional theory (DFT) calculation, a ternary carbon‐supported PtRuPd catalyst was designed and synthesized for DME electrooxidation. DFT calculations indicated that Pd in the ternary PtRuPd catalyst is capable of significantly decreasing the activation energy of the CO and CH bond scission during the oxidation process. As evidenced by both electrochemical measurements in an aqueous electrolyte and polymer‐electrolyte fuel cell testing, the ternary catalyst shows much higher activity (two‐fold enhancement at 0.5 V in fuel cells) than the state‐of‐the‐art binary Pt 50 Ru 50 /C catalyst (HiSPEC 12100).