Recent Studies on Bimetallic Pt-M Catalyst for the Oxygen Reduction Reaction in Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells

Due to environmental pollution and global warming, research on new energy sources that can replace fossil fuels is important. A fuel cell is an eco-friendly energy conversion system that discharges water, and uses hydrogen as fuel. Although platinum is a widely used catalyst in PEMFCs, it has commercial limitations because of its low stability and high cost. Pt-based bimetal catalysts are being studied to improve performance and reduce the cost of fuel cell catalysts. Pt-M is excellent in terms of performance, stability, and cost, avoiding the disadvantages of the Pt catalyst. Studies on various bimetallic catalysts have been conducted, and among them, studies on Pt-Ni, Pt-Co, and Pt-Fe have been the most active. This review summarizes reports of fuel cell catalysts using Pt-M from 2014 to 2020. In recent studies, in order to improve the Pt-M performance, there have been attempts to change the pretreatment, the type of support, and the composition of Pt and M. There have also been studies that have applied new synthetic methods, which are different from traditional synthetic methods. Many Pt-M catalysts have shown better performance than commercial Pt/C, and exhibited stable performance in durability tests.