Effect of Solvent Ratio (Ethylene Glycol/Water) in the Synthesis of Pt/C Cathode Catalysts on PEM Fuel Cell Performance

Abstract

Abstract The ethylene glycol (EG)/water mixture composition of an alkaline one-step polyol synthesis for Pt/C catalysts was systematically investigated and optimized for a low ethylene glycol content with regards to resulting Pt particle size and electrochemical performance of membrane electrode assemblies tested as proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell cathode catalysts. Beginning test fuel cell data show a possible reduction of the required EG amount per gram of synthesized catalyst by up to 98% without significantly compromising the initial electrochemical performance. Taking catalyst durability into account, a Pt/C catalyst synthesized with 40 vol% H2O and 32 mM Pt precursor concentration showed a decent initial electrochemical performance (716 mV at 1 A cm-2) as well as an accelerated stress test-derived stability similar to an internal reference catalyst, obtained with 100 vol% EG. In summary, our study shows that optimizing the amount of water and platinum precursor in the synthesis process can lead to catalysts with excellent performance for PEM fuel cells while contributing significantly to cost reduction by using less EG during synthesis.