Abstract
Direct ethanol fuel cells (DEFCs) have shown a high potential to supply energy and contribute to saving the climate due to their bioethanol sustainability and carbon neutrality. Nonetheless, there is a consistent need to develop new catalyst electrodes that are active for the ethanol oxidation reaction (EOR). In this work, two C-supported PdIrNi catalysts, that have been reported only once, are prepared via a facile NaBH4 co-reduction route. Their physiochemical characterization (X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS)) results show alloyed PdIrNi nanoparticles that are well dispersed (<3 nm) and exist in metallic state that is air-stable apart from Ni and, slightly, Pd. Their electrocatalytic activity towards EOR was evaluated by means of cyclic voltammetry (CV) and chronoamperometry (CA). Even though the physiochemical characterization of PdIrNi/C and Pd4Ir2Ni1/C is promising, their EOR performance has proven them less active than their Pd/C counterpart. Although the oxidation current peak of Pd/C is 1.8 A/mgPd, it is only 0.48 A/mgPd for Pd4Ir2Ni1/C and 0.52 A/mgPd for PdIrNi/C. These results were obtained three times and are reproducible, but since they do not add up with the sound PdIrNi microstructure, more advanced and in situ EOR studies are necessary to better understand the poor EOR performance.
Highlights
IntroductionAs a liquid, ethanol is easy to store and transport
Fuel cells are one of the promising technologies which can contribute to energy demands while mitigating environmental challenges by reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions unlike conventional heat engines [4,5,6,7]
The baseline ininterpretation is that both trimetallic surfaces contain less Pd active sites than Pd/C which terpretation is that both trimetallic surfaces contain less Pd active sites than Pd/C which is not entirely inaccurate according to the examined by an X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) results the exact in is not entirely inaccurate according to the EDX and XPS results the exact in situ situ reduction of Pd active sites is unknown
Summary
As a liquid, ethanol is easy to store and transport. It is energetic (8 kWh/L), and can be produced from biomass and agricultural sources [8,9]. The development of direct ethanol fuel cells (DEFCs) is a promising research goal [9,10,11,12]. Despite those advantages, there remain challenges regarding the commercialization of DEFCs. One is the scarcity of Pt reserves [13,14]
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