Development and Characterization of Pd-C-Fe Electrocatalysts Used in Direct Methanol Fuel Cells
Date Issued
2008
Date
2008
Author(s)
Yeh, Yun-Chieh
Abstract
With global energy demand growth and human impacts on thenvironment, to raise the requirements of each country on fuel cell researchnd development is increasing. fuel cell is a device that generates electricity by a chemical reaction.ith the help of electrocatalyst, efficient decomposition of fuel could beltized. Platinum and its alloys supported on different kind of carbonupports were used as traditional electrocatalyst in direct methanol fuelells (DMFCs). However, the high cost and the limited abundance arehowing potential threat for further application in real life. Moreover,latinum-based catalyst suffered serious methanol-poisonoing problemuring cell operation. In this regard, non-platinum catalyst has received areat attention during these years. Recent research has shown that Pd-basedatalyst has higher tolerance to methanol than Pt-based catalyst. It mayenerate higher operational efficiency and can prolong the operation periodo the DMFCs. Most of recent investigations on Pd-based catalyst focus onow alloying effect between Pd and other kinds of transition metalsffected the catalytic efficiency. However, the real reason for themprovement of catalytic efficiency to these Pd-M alloy (M= transitionetal) is so far not fully understood.n the present thesis, PdCFe/C electrocatalyst was facilitated bympregnation method. X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) was appliedor the structural investigations. The electrochemical behaviours towardsxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and the methanol crossover effect weretudied by cyclic voltammery (CV). The formation mechanism of PdCFe/Clectrocatalyst and its catalytic activity were facilitated by above studiesnd theoretical calculations. The corrosion of electrocatalysts and damagef carbon support are commonly occuring during the operation of fuel cells.o increase the acid tolerance and prolong the life time of electrocatalyst,u monolayer was deposited on the surface of PdCFe/C by modifiedmpregnation (IM) method and drop-by-drop (DBD) method. To performhe acid tolerance test, the Inductively couple plasma- atomic emissionpectroscopy (ICP-AES) was applied. Based on ICP-AES test results, theuppression of metal leaching was observed. It has also been proved thathe Au deposition method is the effective method for catalyst protectionuring the cell operation under acid electrolytic conditions.
Subjects
PdCFe
non-platinum electrocatalyst
X-ray absorption spectroscopy
DMFCs
Type
thesis
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