Researchers at Brown University in the United States have developed a new type of alloy catalyst that can reduce the amount of precious metal platinum and has good performance. Its activity and durability indicators exceed the 2020 automotive electrocatalyst technical specifications formulated by the US Department of Energy. Has broad application prospects.
The high cost of platinum catalysts is one of the important factors preventing the widespread use of hydrogen fuel cells. To reduce costs, it is a feasible idea to combine platinum with other cheap metals to make alloy catalysts, but how to maintain the performance of such catalysts is a challenge.
The new catalyst is made of platinum and cobalt, and the outer layer is pure platinum, which encloses a core formed by platinum and cobalt atoms alternately. This layered core structure is the key to good catalyst activity and durability. Researchers published a research report in the journal "Joule" on the 16th that preliminary tests showed that the catalyst performed well in a laboratory environment and still maintained its activity well after 30,000 voltage cycles. After so many voltage cycles, performance will decrease significantly. For fuel cell vehicles, 30,000 voltage cycles are roughly equivalent to 5 years of fuel cell vehicles.
To further verify the performance of the catalyst in a real fuel cell operating environment, the researchers sent the catalyst to the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States for testing, and the results were unexpected. The initial activity and durability test data of the new catalyst are far better than the 2020 technical targets set by the US Department of Energy for automotive electrocatalysts. The Ministry of Energy's 2020 vehicle electrocatalyst's initial activation technology target is 0.44A / mg (0.44 amps per milligram), and the durability target is less than 40% after 30,000 voltage cycles, that is, its activity is at least 0.26A / mg. The initial activity of the new alloy catalyst is 0.56A / mg, and the activity is 0.45A / mg after 30,000 voltage cycles.
Researchers said that durability is a major problem for alloy catalysts, and the new catalysts have reached a very high standard in both initial activity and durability, and the future application prospects are very broad.