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Catalyst Electrodes with PtCu Nanowire Arrays In Situ Grown on Gas Diffusion Layers for Direct Formic Acid Fuel Cells

[Image: see text] The excellent performance and safety of direct formic acid fuel cells (DFAFCs) promote them as potential power sources for portable electronic devices. However, their real application is still highly challenging due to the poor power performance and high complexity in the fabricati...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Li, Yang, Yan, Yichang, He, Yanping, Du, Shangfeng
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Chemical Society 2022
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9007414/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35201741
http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsami.1c24010
Descripción
Sumario:[Image: see text] The excellent performance and safety of direct formic acid fuel cells (DFAFCs) promote them as potential power sources for portable electronic devices. However, their real application is still highly challenging due to the poor power performance and high complexity in the fabrication of catalyst electrodes. In this work, we demonstrate a new gas diffusion electrode (GDE) with ultrathin PtCu alloy nanowire (NW) arrays in situ grown on the carbon paper gas diffusion layer surface. The growing process is achieved by a facile template- and surfactant-free self-growth assisted reduction method at room temperature. A finely controlled ion reduction process tunes the nucleation and crystal growth of Pt and Cu leading to the formation of alloy nanowires with an average diameter of about 4 nm. The GDE is directly used as the anode for DFAFCs. The results in the half-cell GDE measurement indicate that the introduction of Cu in PtCu NWs boosts the direct oxidation pathway for formic acid. The Pt(3)Cu(1) NW GDE shows a 2.4-fold higher power density compared to the Pt NW GDE in the membrane electrode assembly test in single cells.