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Ethanol‐tolerant Pt‐alloy cathodes for direct ethanol fuel cell (DEFC) applications
Author(s) -
Rodríguez Varela F. J.,
Savadogo O.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
asia‐pacific journal of chemical engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.348
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1932-2143
pISSN - 1932-2135
DOI - 10.1002/apj.193
Subject(s) - direct ethanol fuel cell , cathode , electrochemistry , alloy , ethanol , chemistry , catalysis , alcohol fuel , oxygen , ethanol fuel , alcohol , current density , chemical engineering , materials science , inorganic chemistry , metallurgy , proton exchange membrane fuel cell , electrode , organic chemistry , physics , quantum mechanics , engineering
The electroactivity of Pt 1 Co 1 (a/o)/C and Pt 3 Cr 1 (a/o)/C for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in ethanol‐containing medium was studied. It was found that these cathodes present a high tolerance to this alcohol. The onset potential of the ORR decreased at 14 and 12 mV in the presence of 0.5 M ethanol on Pt 1 Co 1 /C and Pt 3 Cr 1 /C, respectively. The tolerance of the Pt alloys is one order of magnitude higher than that shown by Pt‐alone catalysts in previous works. Exceptionally, the Pt 1 Co 1 /C alloy maintained a very important electrocatalytic activity, i.e. a very small variation in current density at 400 mV in electrochemical cell measurements and improved performances in a direct ethanol fuel cell (DEFC). The current densities obtained from the DEFC equipped with a 10% Pt 1 Co 1 /C cathode were similar to those obtained when 20% Pt 3 Cr 1 /C was used. However, a higher performance in terms of Pt content was shown by PtCo/C. These electrochemical characteristics indicate the advantage of using PtCo alloys as cathodes in DEFCs. Copyright © 2008 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.