Amorphous nickel boride membrane on a platinum–nickel alloy surface for enhanced oxygen reduction reaction

Daping He, Libo Zhang, Dongsheng He, Gang Zhou, Yue Lin, Zhaoxiang Deng, Xun Hong, Yuen Wu (), Chen Chen () and Yadong Li ()
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Daping He: Center of Advanced Nanocatalysis (CAN-USTC), University of Science and Technology of China
Libo Zhang: State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology
Dongsheng He: Center of Advanced Nanocatalysis (CAN-USTC), University of Science and Technology of China
Gang Zhou: State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology
Yue Lin: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China
Zhaoxiang Deng: Center of Advanced Nanocatalysis (CAN-USTC), University of Science and Technology of China
Xun Hong: Center of Advanced Nanocatalysis (CAN-USTC), University of Science and Technology of China
Yuen Wu: Center of Advanced Nanocatalysis (CAN-USTC), University of Science and Technology of China
Chen Chen: Tsinghua University
Yadong Li: Center of Advanced Nanocatalysis (CAN-USTC), University of Science and Technology of China

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract The low activity of the oxygen reduction reaction in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells is a major barrier for electrocatalysis, and hence needs to be optimized. Tuning the surface electronic structure of platinum-based bimetallic alloys, a promising oxygen reduction reaction catalyst, plays a key role in controlling its interaction with reactants, and thus affects the efficiency. Here we report that a dealloying process can be utilized to experimentally fabricate the interface between dealloyed platinum–nickel alloy and amorphous nickel boride membrane. The coating membrane works as an electron acceptor to tune the surface electronic structure of the platinum–nickel catalyst, and this composite catalyst composed of crystalline platinum–nickel covered by amorphous nickel boride achieves a 27-times enhancement in mass activity relative to commercial platinum/carbon at 0.9 V for the oxygen reduction reaction performance. Moreover, this interactional effect between a crystalline surface and amorphous membrane can be readily generalized to facilitate the 3-times higher catalytic activity of commercial platinum/carbon.

Date: 2016
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12362

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