Controlled Hydrolysis of a Nickel-Ammonia Complex on Pt Nanoparticles for the Preparation of Highly Active and Stable PtNi/C Catalysts

Thermal annealing at high temperatures is usually employed to alloy Pt with transitional metals to produce Pt-based electrocatalysts in an oxygen reduction reaction for polymer exchange membrane fuel cells. How to curb thermal annealing induced aggregation and sintering has been a major concern in post-treatment. Here we developed an optimized impregnation method by controlled hydrolysis of a nickel-ammonia complex on Pt/C via dropwise addition of NaOH to form homogeneously dispersed catalyst precursors. These precursor powders are then subjected to thermal annealing and subsequent acidic leaching to produce alloyed A-PtNi/C catalysts. A-PtNi/C displayed a high mass activity (MA) and specific activity (SA) of 0.903 A mg(Pt)(-1)@0.9 V and 2.36 mA cm(-2), respectively. In addition, the electrochemical surface area (ECSA) and MA only suffered losses of 3 and 33%, respectively, after an accelerated durability test. Both activity and stability of A-PtNi/C far exceed the 2020 Department of Energy target set for ORR catalysts.

Automated summary

In this study, an optimized impregnation method was developed to produce high-performance PtNi catalysts with superior activity and stability in the oxygen reduction reaction. The catalysts showed significantly higher activity and stability than the current targets set for ORR catalysts.