Issue 1/2017 - New platinum-based catalyst extends fuel battery life

The new platinum-based catalyst to extend fuel life
metal platinum (Pt) is a very good fuel cell catalyst, but platinum reserves are limited, expensive, how to improve its atomic utilization and reactivity, determine whether fuel cells can be applied
on a large scale.

A few days ago, the journal "Science" published a collaborative result by Professor Huang Xiaoqing of Soochow University, Professor Guo Shaojun of Peking University, and Su Dong of Brookhaven National Laboratory in the United States, they covered 4~6 layers of platinum in addition to platinum-lead (PtPb) nanosheets, this new material has high redox reactivity and durability
.
This achievement has played an important role
in exploring and developing better high-performance catalysts and promoting the rapid development of fuel cells.

Huang Xiaoqing's research group worked closely with many research groups at home and abroad to successfully prepare high-quality monodisperse PtPb nanosheets
by chemical method.
They found that 4~6 layers of Pt can be perfectly covered on the surface of PtPb nanosheets, forming a unique PtPb/Pt core-shell structure
.
It is found that the strong tensile stress on the surface of Pt(110) can greatly promote the redox reaction performance, so that this PtPb/Pt core-shell structure catalyst has very excellent redox reaction performance
.
The homogeneous 4-layer Pt shell on the surface of the PtPb/Pt core nanodisk ensures the high durability of these catalysts, which have almost no active decay after 50,000 voltage cycles, and no significant structural and composition changes
.
It is valuable that the catalyst can not only be used as a catalyst for the cathodic redox reaction of fuel cells, but also can be used to catalyze the anode reaction
.