Carbon Monoxide-Resistant Anode Catalysts for Single-Cell Direct Carbon Monoxide Fuel Cells: Binary, Ternary, And Quaternary Platinum Alloys as Anode Electrocatalysts

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to present the results of experimentations on the custom-made anode electrocatalysts for direct carbon monoxide fuel cells (DCMFCs) inspired by catalysts commonly used for direct alcohol fuel cells. Seven different catalysts were fabricated and tested. The uniform and consistent manufacturing process and the test procedure allowed a meaningful comparison of the developed fuel cells. The results indicated that homemade Pt-Ru membrane-electrode assembly (MEA) could not compete with the Pt-Sn MEA. While the performance of the MEAs with Pt-Ru-Ni, Pt-Ru-Sn-Ni, and Pt-Ru-Sn-Co was not satisfactory, the Pt-Ru-Sn-Co-W MEA achieved the best performance among all MEAs with Nafion^® 117 membrane. The last MEA was made of the Pt-Sn anode catalyst and Nafion^® 212 membrane and outperformed all other MEAs by a wide margin. The experiments demonstrated that the performance of the best-developed MEA was three times better than the performance of the commercial Pt-Ru MEA. This means the performance of DCMFCs can be significantly improved by developing a suitable anode electrocatalyst, using a thinner membrane, and operating at optimum conditions. These results are not only applicable for DCMFCs but also are very useful for other proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) operating with CO-containing fuels.