Self-Standing Nanofiber Electrodes with Pt-Co Derived from Electrospun Zeolitic Imidazolate Framework for High Temperature PEM Fuel Cells

Expedited conversion of O-2 to H2O with minimal amounts of Pt is essential for wide applicability of PEM fuel cells (PEMFCs). Therefore, it is imperative to develop a process for catalyst management to circumvent unnecessary catalyst loss while improving the Pt utilization, catalytic activity, and durability. Here, the fabrication of a self-standing nanofiber electrode is demonstrated by employing electrospinning. This film-type catalyst simultaneously contains Pt-Co alloy nanoparticles and Co embedded in an N-doped graphitized carbon (Co-N-x) support derived from the electrospun zeolitic imidazolate frameworks. Notably, the flexible electrode is directly transferrable for the membrane-electrode assembly of high temperature PEMFC. In addition, the electrodes exhibit excellent performance, maybe owing to the synergistic interaction between the Pt-Co and Co-N-x as revealed by the computational modeling study. This method simplifies the fabrication and operation of cell device with negligible Pt loss, compared to ink-based conventional catalyst coating methods.

Automated summary

The expedited conversion of O-2 to H2O with minimal amounts of Pt is crucial for the wide applicability of PEM fuel cells. Developing a process for catalyst management is essential to avoid unnecessary catalyst loss while enhancing Pt utilization, catalytic activity, and durability. The fabrication of self-standing nanofiber electrodes using electrospinning simplifies the operation of cell devices and reduces Pt loss, showing excellent performance due to the synergistic interaction between Pt-Co and Co-N-x nanoparticles.