Studies of electrochemical performance of carbon supported Pt-Cu nanoparticles as anode catalysts for direct borohydride-hydrogen peroxide fuel cell

摘要

Carbon supported Pt-Cu bimetallic nanoparticles are prepared by a modified NaBH_4 reduction method in aqueous solution and used as the anode electrocatalyst of direct borohydride-hydrogen peroxide fuel cell (DBHFC). The physical and electrochemical properties of the as-prepared electrocatalysts are investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), cyclic voltammetry (CV), chronoamperometry (CA), chronopotentiometry (CP) and fuel cell test. The results show that the carbon supported Pt-Cu bimetallic catalysts have much higher catalytic activity for the direct oxidation of BH~(4-) than the carbon supported pure nanosized Pt catalyst, especially the Pt_(50)Cu_(50)/C catalyst presents the highest catalytic activity among all as-prepared catalysts, and the DBHFC using Pt_(50)Cu_(50)/C as anode electrocatatyst and Pt/C as cathode electrocatalyst shows as high as 71.6mW cm~(-2) power density at a discharge current density of 54.7 mA cm~(-2) at 25 ℃.