• 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.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.97.2-97.2
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• 2011

Pt-Ru and Pt-Ni bimetallic catalysts were prepared and tested for heavy hydrocarbon reforming. Metals were supported on CGO($Ce_{0.8}Gd_{0.2}O_{2.0-x}$) by incipient wetness method. The prepared catalysts were characterized by Temperature programmed reduction(TPR). Oxidative steam reforming of n-dodecane was conducted to compare the activity of the catalysts. The reforming temperature was varied from $500^{\circ}C$ to $800^{\circ}C$ at fixed $O_2$/C of 0.3, $H_2O$/C of 3.0 and GHSV of 5,000/h.Reduction peaks of metal oxide, surface CGO and bulk CGO were detected. Reduction temperature of metal oxide decreased over the bi-metallic catalysts. It is considered that interaction between metals leads to decrease interaction between metal and oxygen. On the other hands, reduction temperatures of surface CGO were dectected in the order of Pt-Ru > Pt-Ni > Pt. low reduction temperatures of surface CGO indicates the low activation energy for oxygen ion conduction to metal. Oxygen ion conduction is known as de-coking mechanism of ionic conducting supports such as CGO. In activity test, fuel conversion was in the same order of Pt-Ru > Pt-Ni > Pt. Especially, 100% of fuel conversion was obtained over Pt-Ru catalysts at $500^{\circ}C$.

• Carbon letters
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.121-125
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• 2003

The Pt-Ru/Carbon as an anode catalyst supported on the commercial activated carbon (AC) having high surface area and micropore was characterized for application of Direct Methanol Fuel Cell (DMFC). The Pt-Ru/AC anode catalyst used in this experiment showed the performance of $600\;mA/cm^2$ current density at 0.3 V. The borohydride reduction process using $NaBH_4$, denoted as a process A, showed much higher current and power densities than process B prepared by changing the reduction and washing process of process A. The particle sizes are strongly affected by the reduction process than the specific surface area of raw active carbon and the sizes are almost constant when the specific surface area of carbon are over than the $1200\;m^2/g$. Smaller particle size of catalyst and more narrow intercrystalite distance increased the performance of DMFC.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.286-290
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• 2008

Small amounts of CO in reformate fuel gas effectively block platinum catalysts by strong adsorption on the platinum surface at the operation temperature of $60{\sim}80^{\circ}C$ in PEMFC. To oxidate CO, Ru/C layer (CO filter) was placed between Pt/C layer and GDL (gas diffusion layer) in this study. Ru/C filter provided good CO-tolerant PEMFC anode, but decreased the performance of unit cell about 10% at 0.6 V due to mass transfer resistance from Ru/C filter thickness and increase of charge transfer resistance. Membrane degradation is one of the most important factors limiting the life-time of PEMFCs. Membrane durability would be dependent on the electrode catalyst type. It seemed that Ru catalyst layer would shorten the life time of PEMFC as enhanced the fluoride emission rate of membrane in acceleration test.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.296-298
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• 2005

Hydrogen generation by the hydrolysis of aqueous sodium borohydride $(NaBH_4)$ solutions was studied using IRA-400 anion resin dispersed Pt. Ru catalysts and Lithium Cobalt oxide $(LiCoO_2)$ supported Pt, Ru and PtRu catalysts. The performance of the $LiCoO_2$ supported catalysts is better than the ion exchange resin dispersed catalysts. There is a marked concentration dependence on the performance of the $LiCoO_2$ supported catalysts and the hydrogen generation rate goes down if the borohydride concentration is increased beyond $10\%$. The efficiency of PtRu- $LiCoO_2$ is almost double that of either Ru-$LiCoO_2$ or Pt-$LiCoO_2$ for $NaBH_4$ concentrations up to $10\%$.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.93.2-93.2
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• 2011

In this work, graphite nanofibers (GNFs) were prepared for using catalyst supports in fuel cells. The GNFs were chemically activated to obtain high surface area and small pore diameter with different potassium hydroxide (KOH) amounts, i.e., 0, 1, 3, 4, and 5 g as an activating agent. And then Pt-Ru was deposited onto activated GNFs (A-GNFs) by chemical reduction method. The characteristics of Pt-Ru catalysts deposited onto A-GNFs were determined by specific surface area and pore size analyzer, X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and inductive coupled plasma-mass spectrometer (ICP-MS). The electrochemical properties of Pt-Ru/A-GNFs catalysts were also analyzed by cyclic voltammetry (CV) experiments. From the results, the A-GNFs carbon supports activated with 4 g of KOH (A4g-GNFs) showed that the highest specific surface areas. In addition, the A4g-GNFs led to uniform dispersion of Pt-Ru onto A4g-GNFs, resulting in the enhancement of electrochemical activity of Pt-Ru catalysts.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.561-566
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• 2012

PtRuW/C catalysts were prepared with the different molar ratios of Pt : Ru : W and their compositions were analyzed by energy dispersive X-ray (EDX). The uniform distribution of particles was observed using transmission electron microscopy (TEM). An average crystalline size of 3.5~5.5 nm was calculated based on x-ray diffraction (XRD) data. The electrochemical properties such as electrochemically active surface areas, current densities, specific activities and poisoning rates, were analyzed via CO stripping, linear sweep voltammetry and chronoamperometry. From the analysis, we observed that ternary alloy catalysts, except $PtRu_2W_2/C$, have higher current densities, specific activities and stabilities than those of commercial binary catalysts. Among all in-house catalysts, Pt5Ru4W/C showed the highest specific activity of $121.05mA{\cdot}m^{-2}$ and the lowest poisoning rate of $0.01%{\cdot}s^{-1}$.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.243-247
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• 2012

A ruthenium (Ru) catalytic layer and a conventional Pt layer were assessed as counter electrodes (CE) for dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Ru films with different thicknesses of 34, 46, and 90 nm were deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD). Pt layers with the same thicknesses were prepared by sputtering. $0.45cm^2$ DSSCs were prepared and their properties were characterized by FE-SEM, cyclic voltammetry (CV), impedance spectroscopy (EIS), and current-voltage (I-V). FE-SEM revealed that the crystallized Ru films and Pt films had been deposited quite conformally. CV showed that the catalytic activity of Pt was much greater than that of Ru. In addition, although the catalytic activity of Pt did not depend on the thickness, that of Ru showed an increase with increasing thickness. Impedance analysis revealed high charge transfer resistance at the Ru interface and a decrease with increasing Ru thickness, whereas Pt showed low resistance with no thickness dependence. Despite the relatively small catalytic activity of Ru, the I-V result revealed the average energy conversion efficiency of Ru and Pt to be 2.98% and 6.57%, respectively. These results suggest that Ru can be used as counter electrodes in DSSCs due to its extremely low temperature process compatibility.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.365-369
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• 2018

We perform density functional theory calculations to study the CO and $O_2$ adsorption chemistry of Pt@X core@shell bimetallic nanoparticles (X = Pd, Rh, Ru, Au, or Ag). To prevent CO-poisoning of Pt nanoparticles, we introduce a Pt@X core-shell nanoparticle model that is composed of exposed surface sites of Pt and facets of X alloying element. We find that Pt@Pd, Pt@Rh, Pt@Ru, and Pt@Ag nanoparticles spatially bind CO and $O_2$, separately, on Pt and X, respectively. Particularly, Pt@Ag nanoparticles show the most well-balanced CO and $O_2$ binding energy values, which are required for facile CO oxidation. On the other hand, the $O_2$ binding energies of Pt@Pd, Pt@Ru, and Pt@Rh nanoparticles are too strong to catalyze further CO oxidation because of the strong oxygen affinity of Pd, Ru, and Rh. The Au shell of Pt@Au nanoparticles preferentially bond CO rather than $O_2$. From a catalysis design perspective, we believe that Pt@Ag is a better-performing Pt-based CO-tolerant CO oxidation catalyst.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.46 no.6
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• pp.1142-1147
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• 2008

Nano-structured porous carbon fiber(PCF) for the catalyst supports of the direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) were prepared from the mesophase pitch by using the nano-MgO powders. Specific surface area of the PCFs was $8{\sim}58m^2/g$ and surface pore structures had almost meso pore diameter of 10~20 nm which were depending on the amount of MgO spheres. Aqueous reduction method was used to load 60 wt% PtRu on the prepared PCF supports. The electro-oxidation activity and single cell performance of the 60 wt% Pt-Ru catalysts were measured by cyclic voltammetry and unit cell test. The performances of these catalysts increased by 5~10% compared with one of commercial catalyst.