Enhancing the durability of multi-walled carbon nanotube supported by Pt and Pt-Pd nanoparticles in gas diffusion electrodes

This work tries to improve the durability of electrocatalysts of gas diffusion electrodes (GDEs) by using multi-walled carbon nanotube supported Pt-Pd bimetallic (Pt-Pd/MWCNT). The durability investigation of multi-walled carbon nanotube supported metals was evaluated by a repetitive potential cycling (RPC) corrosion test and by extended constant potential (ECP) experiments. Potential cycling tests were performed from -0.3 to 1.2 V at 50 mV s(-1) in 1 mol L-1 H2SO4. Extended constant potential (ECP) durability test were also carried out on the GDEs by 30 h of constant potential operation at 0.8 V vs. Ag/AgCl. The smaller performance loss was observed on the GDE using Pt-Pd/MWCNT as electrocatalyst compared with GDE using Pt/MWCNT during both durability tests. ICP analysis also suggests that the dissolution of Pt nanoparticles from the carbon nanotube surface is hindered when Pd is present. (C) 2010 Professor T. Nejat Veziroglu. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.