Steering Pt surface via N-doped carbon layer to highly active CO-tolerant hydrogen oxidation reaction catalyst in alkaline media

Abstract

Improving the CO-tolerant ability of Pt-based electrocatalysts is crucial for fuel cells fed with industrial byproduct hydrogen. Herein, we present a novel core-shell structured Pt@NC/C catalyst consisting of ultrafine Pt nanoparticles (1.63 nm) as the core and ultrathin nitrogen-doped carbon layers (0.36 nm) as the shell. The catalyst exhibits excellent alkaline hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR) activity with a mass activity of 187 A g−1Pt and a specific activity of 0.20 mA cm−2Pt, which are 1.3 and 2.2-folds to the counterpart Pt/C, respectively. More remarkably, it shows good anti CO-poisoning ability. In presence of H2 with 100 ppm CO, the HOR current degraded by 18.22% on 10% Pt/C versus only 4.81% on 10% Pt@NC/C-400. The combined X-ray photo-electron spectrum (XPS) analysis, COad stripping, CO oxidation and Zeta potential measurements imply that hydroxyl adsorption is enhanced on the NC covered Pt in 10% Pt@NC/C-400 possibly due to electron modulation induced by the strong metal and support interaction, which accelerates HOR kinetics and improvs anti-CO ability. This work provides a facile and feasible strategy to design efficient and CO-resistant Pt-based catalysts.