• Carbon letters
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.41-46
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• 2005

Plasma carbon blacks of 20~30 nm diameter were synthesized by direct decomposition of natural gas using a hybrid plasma torch system with 50 kW direct current and 4 MHz of radio frequency. The insulating rector which inside diameter of 400 mm and length of 1500 mm, respectively was kept at 300~$400^{\circ}C$ during the preparation. The ultimate analysis of plasma carbon blacks reveals that the raw plasma carbon blacks contains a large quantity of volatile which is mainly consist of hydrogen. Therefore devolatilization of raw plasma carbon blacks were carried out at $900^{\circ}C$ for one hour under nitrogen atmosphere. The devolatilization leads to the decrease in electrical resistivity and surface oxygen functional groups of plasma carbon black significantly. In order to investigate the plasma carbon as a catalyst support, devolatilized plasma black at $900^{\circ}C$ (DPB) supported PtAu catalyst was synthesized by sodium boronhydride reduction method. Electrochemical measurements and direct formic acid fuel cell test indicated that catalytic activity of DPB supported PtAu catalyst for formic acid oxidation was similar to that of Vulcan XC-72 of commercial carbon black supported one.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.187-195
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• 2000

Electrochemical promotion of the reaction rate was investigated for CO oxidation in a solid electrolyte catalytic reactor where a thin film of Pt was deposited on the yttria stabilized zirconia as an electrode as well as a catalyst. It was shown under open circuit condition that potential was a mixed potential of $O_2$exchange reaction and electrochemical reaction induced by CO. The effect of electrochemical modification on the CO oxidation rate was studied at various overpotentials and $P_{CO}$$P_{O2}$.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.281-288
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• 2010

This study examined the carbon corrosion at Pt/C interface in proton exchange membrane fuel cell environment. The Pt nano particles were electrodeposited on carbon substrate, and then the corrosion behavior of the carbon electrode was examined. The carbon electrodes with Pt nano electrodeposits exhibited the higher oxidation rate and lower oxidation overpotential compared with that of the electrode without Pt. This phenomenon was more active at $75^{\circ}C$ than $25^{\circ}C$. In addition, the current transients and the corresponding power spectral density (PSD) of the carbon electrodes with Pt nano electrodeposits were much higher than those of the electrode without Pt. The carbon corrosion at Pt/C interface was highly accelerated by Pt nano electrodeposits. Furthermore, the polarization and power density curves of PEMFC showed degradation in the performance due to a deterioration of cathode catalyst material and Pt dissolution.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.527-534
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• 1992

Raney nickel was used as catalyst in the hydrogen electrode for an alkaline fuel cell. The hydrogen electrode manufactured with the Raney nickel catalyst which was sintered at $700^{\circ}C$ was found to have the highest electrode performance. Using the Raney nickel powder of average particle size $90{\AA}$ for the electrode, the current density which had been measured was $450mA/cm^2$ at $80^{\circ}C$ using 6N KOH solution as an electrolyte. The effects of PTFE addition were investigated with CO-chemisorption, polarization curves and Tafel slope. CO-chemisorption had shown the optimum value when the Raney nickel was mixed with 5wt% of PTFE, but from the current density and Tafel slope at porous Raney nickel electrode, the appropriate value of PTFE addition was 10wt%. Recommendable Ni and Al portion for Raney nickel was 60 : 40 and loading amount was $0.25g/cm^2$. Also the influence of pressing pressure for manufacturing catalytic layer and for junction with gas diffusion layer was examined. The morphology of catalyst surface was investigated with SEM. The influence of reactivation time and heat-treatment temperature were also studied.

• Carbon letters
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.38-40
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• 2010

Carbon supported electrocatalysts are commonly used as electrode materials for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells(PEMFCs). These kinds of electrocatalysts provide large surface area and sufficient electrical conductivity. The support of typical PEM fuel cell catalysts has been a traditional conductive type of carbon black. However, even though the carbon particles conduct electrons, there is still significant portion of Pt that is isolated from the external circuit and the PEM, resulting in a low Pt utilization. Herein, new types of carbon materials to effectively utilize the Pt catalyst are being evaluated. Carbon nanofiber/activated carbon fiber (CNF/ACF) composite with multifunctional surfaces were prepared through catalytic growth of CNFs on ACFs. Nickel nitrate was used as a precursor of the catalyst to synthesize carbon nanofibers(CNFs). CNFs were synthesized by pyrolysising $CH_4$ using catalysts dispersed in acetone and ACF(activated carbon fiber). The as-prepared samples were characterized with transmission electron microscopy(TEM), scanning electron microscopy(SEM). In TEM image, carbon nanofibers were synthesized on the ACF to form a three-dimensional network. Pt/CNF/ACF was employed as a catalyst for PEMFC. As the ratio of prepared catalyst to commercial catalyst was changed from 0 to 50%, the performance of the mixture of 30 wt% of Pt/CNF/ACF and 70wt% of Pt/C commercial catalyst showed better perfromance than that of 100% commercial catalyst. The unique structure of CNF can supply the significant site for the stabilization of Pt particles. CNF/ACF is expected to be promising support to improve the performance in PEMFC.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.7-14
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• 2017

This study aims to examine the influences of substrates/diffusion layers (DL) and oxygen reduction reaction catalysts ($M_{ORR}$) on the performance of $M_{ORR}/IrO_2$/DL-type bifunctional oxygen electrodes for use in polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM)-type unitized regenerative fuel cells (URFC). The $M_{ORR}/IrO_2$/DL electrodes were prepared via two sequential steps: anodic electrodeposition of $IrO_2$ on various DLs and fabrication of $M_{ORR}$ layers (Pt, Pd, and Pt-Ru) by spraying on $IrO_2/DL$. Experiments using different DLs, with Pt as the $M_{ORR}$, revealed that the roughness factor of the DL mainly determined the electrode performance for both water electrolyzer (WE) and fuel cell (FC) operations, while the contributions of porosity and substrate material were insignificant. When Pt-Ru was utilized as the $M_{ORR}$ instead of Pt, WE performance was enhanced and the electrode performance was assessed by analyzing round-trip efficiencies (${\varepsilon}_{RT}$) at current densities of 0.2 and $0.4A/cm^2$. As a result, using Pt-Ru instead of Pt alone provided better ${\varepsilon}_{RT}$ at both current densities, while Pd resulted in very low ${\varepsilon}_{RT}$. Improved efficiency was related to the additional catalytic action by Ru toward ORR during WE operation.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.61 no.2
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• pp.202-207
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• 2023

In the case of driving water electrolysis by receiving surplus electricity from solar and wind power generation, operation and stopping must be repeated according to weather fluctuations. When the PEMWE(Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Water Electrolysis) is driven and stopped, the PEM fuel cell is in the same state as the PEM fuel cell due to the residual hydrogen and oxygen, and the high potential of the water electrolysis formed during operation is highly likely to cause degradation of the electrode and membrane even during stopping. In this study, in order to check how much degradation of the electrode and membrane progresses during the repeated driving/shutdown process of PEM water electrolysis, the performance decrease was measured by changing the number of driving/shutdown for 144 hours. Changes in electrode catalyst active area, hydrogen permeability and fluorine emision rate of membranes were analyzed to measure changes in the properties of electrodes and polymer membranes. Overall, the PEMWE performance decreased as the number of stops increased. When stopped 5 times in 144 hours, the IrO_x catalyst activity decreased by more than 30%, and the hydrogen permeability increased by 80%, confirming that both the electrode and the membrane were deteriorated.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society for Energy Engineering kosee Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.133-138
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• 2004

Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is considered as a clean and efficient energy conversion det ice for mobile and stationary applications. Anions all the components of the PEMFC, the interface between the electrolyte ,and electrode catalyst plays an important role in determining tile cell performance since the electrochemical reactions take place at the interface in contact with tile reactant gases. Therefore, to increase the interface area and obtain a high-performance PEMFC, surface of the electrolyte membrane was roughened by Ar$^{+}$ beam bombardment. The results imply that by modifying surface of the electrolyte membrane, platinum loading can be reduced significantly without performance loss. To optimize the surface treatment condition, effects of ion dose density on characteristics of the membrane/electrode interface were examined by measuring the cell performance, impedance spectroscopy, and cyclic voltammograms. Surface of the modified membranes were characterized using scanning electron microscopy and FT-IR.R.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.276-283
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• 2020

Alcohol-based solvents including ethanol (EtOH) and tert-butyl alcohol (TBA) are investigated instead of isopropanol (IPA), which is a common solvent for polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), as an alternative solvent for preparing the catalyst slurry with PTFE binder. As a result, the performance at 0.2 A/㎠ from the single cells from using catalyst slurries based on EtOH and TBA showed very similar value to that from the slurry using IPA, which implies the EtOH and TBA can be used as a solvent for the catalyst slurry. It is also confirmed by the very close values of the total resistance of the membrane electrode assemblies from the slurries using different solvents. In the energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS) image, the shape of crack and dispersion of PTFE are changed according to the vapor pressure of the solvent.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.172-175
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• 2001

Nanophase catalyst layer for direct methanol fuel cell has been fabricated by magnetron sputtering method. Catalyst metal targets and carbon were sputtered simultaneously on the Nafion membrane surface at abnormally higher gas (Ar/He mixture) pressure than that of normal thin film processing. They could be coated as a novel structure of catalyst layer containing porous PtRu or Pt and carbon particles both in nanometer range. Membrane electrode assembly made with this layer led to a reduction of the catalyst loading. At the catalyst loading of 1.5mg $PtRu/cm^2$ for anode and 1mg $Pt/cm^2$ for cathode, it could provide $45 mW/cm^2$ in the operation at 2 M methanol, 1 Bar Air at 80"C. It is more than $30\%$ increase of the power density performance at the same level of catalyst loading by conventional method. This was realized due to the ultra fine particle sizes and a large fraction of the atoms lie on the grain boundaries of nanophase catalyst layer and they played an important role of fast catalyst reaction kinetics and more efficient fuel path. Commercialization of direct methanol fuel cell for portable electronic devices is anticipated by the further development of such design.