• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.29-37
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• 1996

Alkaline water electrolysis has been commercialized as the only large-scale method for a long time to produce hydrogen and the technology is superior to other methods such as photochemical, thermochemical water splitting, and thermal decomposition method in view of efficiency and related technical problem. However, such conventional electrolyzer do not have high electric efficiency and productivity to apply to large scale hydrogen production for energy or chemical feedstocks. Solid polymer electrolyte water electrolysis using a perfluorocation exchange membrane as an $H^+$ ion conductor is considered to be a promising method, because of capability for operating at high current densities and low cell voltages. So, this is a good technology for the storage of electricity generated by photovoltaic power plants, wind generators and other energy conversion systems. One of the most important R&D topics in electrolyser is how to minimize cell voltage and maximize current density in order to increase the productivity of the electrolyzer. A commercialized technology is the hot press method which the film type electrocatalyst is hot-pressed to soild polymer membrane in order to eliminate the contact resistance. Various technologies, electrocatalyst formed over Nafion membrane surface by means of nonelectrolytic plating process, porous sintered metal(titanium powder) or titanium mesh coated with electrocatalyst, have been studied for preparation of membrane-electrocatalyst composites. In this study some experiments have been conducted at a solid polymer electrolyte water electrolyzer, which consisted of single cell stack with an electrode area of $25cm^2$ in a unipolar arrangement using titanium mesh coated with electrocatalyst.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.38-57
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• 2021

The different weight ratios of Pd to Pt, i.e., 16:4, 10:10, 4:16 in Pd-Pt/C and Pd (20 wt. %) /C electrocatalysts with low metal loading were synthesized for glycerol electrooxidation in an air breathing microfluidic fuel cell (MFC). The cell performance on Pd-Pt (16:4)/C anode electrocatalyst was found best among all the electrocatalysts tested. The single cell when tested at a temperature of 35℃ using Pd-Pt (16:4)/C, showed maximum open circuit voltage (OCV) of 0.70 V and maximum power density of 2.77 mW/㎠ at a current density of 7.71 mA/㎠. The power density increased 1.45 times when cell temperature was raised from 35℃ to 75℃. The maximum OCV of 0.78 V and the maximum power density of 4.03 mW/㎠ at a current density of 10.47 mA/㎠ were observed at the temperature of 75℃. The results of CV substantiate the single cell performance for various operating parameters.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.261-272
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• 2022

CO₂ electroreduction is considered as a means to overcome climate change by converting CO₂ into value-added chemicals and liquid fuels. Although numerous researchers have screened versatile metal for the use of electrodes, and looked into the reaction mechanism, it is still required to develop highly enhanced electrocatalyst for CO₂ reduction to reach beyond lab-scale. Plasma treatment applying onto the surface of meal electrodes could improve activity, selectivity and stability of the electrocatalysts. This review highlights the effect of plasma pretreatment, and provides insight to design suitable CO₂ electrocatalyst.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.233-239
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• 2009

The electrocatalytic behavior of the PtCo catalyst supported on the multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) has been evaluated and compared with commercial Pt/C catalyst in a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell(PEMFC). A PtCo/MWNTs electrocatalyst with a Pt:Co atomic ratio of 79:21 was synthesized and applied to a cathode of PEMFC. The structure and morphology of the synthesized PtCo/MWNTs electrocatalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. As a result of the X-ray studies, the crystal structure of a PtCo particle was determined to be a face-centered cubic(FCC) that was the same as the platinum structure. The particle size of PtCo in PtCo/MWNTs and Pt in Pt/C were 2.0 nm and 2.7 nm, respectively, which were calculated by Scherrer's formula from X-ray diffraction data. As a result we concluded that the specific surface activity of PtCo/MWNTs is superior to Pt/C's activity because of its smaller particle size. From the electrochemical impedance measurement, the membrane electrode assembly(MEA) fabricated with PtCo/MWNTs showed smaller anodic and cathodic activation losses than the MEA with Pt/C, although ohmic loss was the same as Pt/C. Finally, from the evaluation of cyclic voltammetry(CV), the unit cell using PtCo/MWNTs as the cathode electrocatalyst showed slightly higher fuel cell performance than the cell with a commercial Pt/C electrocatalyst.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.531-539
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• 2019

The development of cost-effective electrocatalysts with high durability is one of the most important challenges for the commercialization of polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs). The durability of the electrocatalyst has been studied in terms of structural change in the active metal and the support. In particular, in fuel cell vehicles, degradation of the carbon-based support is known to have a significant effect on the electrocatalyst deterioration since the start-up/shut-down cycle is frequently repeated. The requirements for the support of the electrocatalyst include high surface area, electrical conductivity, chemical stability, and so on. In this study, we propose the evaluation methods for choosing better support materials and present the physicochemical properties that promising carbon supports should have. Three kinds of carbon materials with different crystallinity are compared. From in-depth study using X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, and accelerated stress test, it is clearly confirmed that the durability of carbon-supported electrocatalysts is closely related to the physicochemical properties of the carbon supports.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.388-404
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• 2024

In the present work, the operating parameters were optimized using Box Behnken Design (BBD) in response surface methodology (RSM) to maximize the hydrogen production rate (R₁) and hydrogen production rate per unit watt consumed (R₂) of a proton exchange membrane electrolysis cell (PEMEC), a third response (R₃) which was the sum of the scaled values of R₁ and R₂ were selected to be maximized so that both hydrogen production rate and hydrogen production rate per unit watt consumed could be maximized. The major parameters which were influencing the experiment for enhancing the output responses were oxygen electrode/anode electrocatalyst loading (A), current supplied (B) and water inlet temperature (C). The commercial proton exchange membrane Nafion^® was used as the electrolyte. The acetylene black carbon (C_AB) supported IrO₂ was used as the electrocatalyst for preparing oxygen electrode/anode whereas commercial Pt (40 wt%)/C_HSA was used as the H₂ electrode/cathode electrocatalyst. The quadratic model was developed to predict the output/ responses and their proximity to the experimental output values. The developed model was found to be significant as the P values for both the responses were < 0.0001 and F values were greater than 1. The optimum condition for both the responses were O₂ electrode/anode electrocatalyst loading of 1.78 mg/cm², supplied current of 0.33 A and water inlet temperature of 54℃. The predicted values for hydrogen production rate (R₁) and hydrogen production rate per unit watt consumed (R₂) were 2.921 mL/min and 2.562 mL/(min·W), respectively obtained from the quadratic model. The error % between the predicted response values and experimental values were 1.47% and 3.08% for R₁ and R₂, respectively. This model predicted the optimum conditions reasonably in good agreement with the experimental conditions for the enhancement of the output responses of the developed PEM based electrolyser.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.269-276
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• 2016

Carbon-supported ordered Pt-Ti alloy nanoparticles were prepared as a durable and efficient oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) electrocatalyst for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) via wet chemical reduction of Pt and Ti precursors with heat treatment at $800^{\circ}C$. X-ray diffraction analysis confirmed that the prepared electrocatalysts with Ti precursor molar compositions of 40% (PtTi40) and 25% (PtTi25) had ordered $Pt_3Ti$ and $Pt_8Ti$ structures, respectively. Comparison of the ORR polarization before and after 1500 electrochemical cycles between 0.6 and 1.1 V showed little change in the ORR polarization curve of the electrocatalysts, demonstrating the high stability of the PtTi40 and PtTi25 alloys. Under the same conditions, commercial carbon-supported Pt nanoparticle electrocatalysts exhibited a negative potential shift (10 mV) in the ORR polarization curve after electrochemical cycling, indicating degradation of the ORR activity.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.32 no.10
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• pp.3660-3665
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• 2011

CO-tolerant PtMo/C alloy electrocatalyst was prepared by a colloidal method, and its electrocatalytic activity toward CO oxidation was investigated. Electrochemical study revealed that the alloy catalyst significantly enhanced catalytic activity toward the electro-oxidation of CO compared to Pt/C counterpart. Cyclic voltammetry suggested that Mo plays an important role in promoting CO electro-oxidation by facilitating the formation of active oxygen species. The effect of Mo on the electronic structure of Pt was investigated using X-ray absorption spectroscopy to elucidate the synergetic effect of alloying. Our in-depth spectroscopic analysis revealed that CO is less strongly adsorbed on PtMo/C catalyst than on Pt/C catalyst due to the modulation of the electronic structure of Pt d-band. Our investigation shows that the enhanced CO electrooxidation in PtMo alloy electrocatalyst is originated from two factors; one comes from the facile formation of active oxygen species, and the other from the weak interaction between Pt and CO.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.237-242
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• 2022

Designing and producing a low-cost, high-current-density electrode with good electrocatalytic activity for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is still a major challenge for the industrial hydrogen energy economy. In this study, nanostructured Fe-doped CuCo(OH)₂ was discovered to be a precedent electrocatalyst for OER with low overpotential, low Tafel slope, good durability, and high electrochemically active surface sites at reduced mass loadings. Fe-doped CuCo(OH)₂ nanosheets are made using a hydrothermal synthesis process. These nanosheets are clumped together to form a highly open hierarchical structure. When used as an electrocatalyst, the Fe-doped CuCo(OH)₂ nanosheets required an overpotential of 260 mV to reach a current density of 50 mA cm^-2. Also, it showed a small Tafel slope of 72.9 mV dec^-1, and superior stability while catalyzing the generation of O₂ continuously for 20 hours. The Fe-doped CuCo(OH)₂ was found to have a large number of active sites which provide hierarchical and stable transfer routes for both electrolyte ions and electrons, resulting in exceptional OER performance.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.353-364
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• 2024

Through component regulation and morphological construction, it is of considerable significance to develop high-activity and high-stability electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution in electrolytic water. In the hydrothermal process, Mo-doped nickel-based sulfide catalysts (Mo-NiS-Fx) with a variety of morphologies (prisms, rods, flakes, and cones) were created by adding NH₄F with varying masses. Among these, the flaky Mo-NiS-F1.2 exhibited exceptional performance towards electrochemical hydrogen evolution reaction, surpassing most similar catalysts with an overpotential of 79 mV at 10 mA cm^-2 and a Tafel slope of 49.8 mV dec^-1. Significantly, Mo-NiS-F1.2 maintained its high activity for hydrogen evolution over 60 h at a current density of 10 mA cm^-2, making it suitable for widespread commercial application. According to the experimental findings, an electrocatalyst with a high surface area and a porous structure is better suited to exposing more gas transfer routes and active sites, which would encourage the hydrogen evolution reaction. This study presents a straightforward procedure for creating electrocatalysts with a range of morphologies, which can serve as a model for the creation of catalysts for use in industrial manufacturing.