Ni2P Makes Application of the PtRu Catalyst Much Stronger in Direct Methanol Fuel Cells

Journal article, 2015

PtRu is regarded as the best catalyst for direct methanol fuel cells, but the performance decay resulting from the loss of Ru seriously hinders commercial applications. Herein, we demonstrated that the presence of Ni2P largely reduces Ru loss, which thus makes the application of PtRu much stronger in direct methanol fuel cells. Outstanding catalytic activity and stability were observed by cyclic voltammetry. Upon integrating the catalyst material into a practical direct methanol fuel cell, the highest maximum power density was achieved on the PtRu-Ni2P/C catalyst among the reference catalysts at different temperatures. A maximum power density of 69.9mWcm-2 at 30°C was obtained on PtRu-Ni2P/C, which is even higher than the power density of the state-of-the-art commercial PtRu catalyst at 70°C (63.1mWcm-2). Moreover, decay in the performance resulting from Ru loss was greatly reduced owing to the presence of Ni2P, which is indicative of very promising applications.