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Electrodeposited Pt–Pd dendrite on carbon support as anode for direct formic acid fuel cells

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Abstract

The activity of bimetallic catalyst is predominantly determined by its composition and its shape. In this work, Pt–Pd bimetallic catalysts were codeposited using cyclic voltammetry on a carbon black-coated carbon paper at two different potential ranges (0 to 1.3 V and − 0.2 to 1.3 V vs. SHE) and with two different Pt precursors (H2PtCl6 and K2PtCl4). SEM analysis revealed that the deposit obtained from both K2PtCl4 and H2PtCl6 precursor resembled the shape of a flower-like dendrite when the deposition potential window was in the range of 0 to 1.3 V. However, shifting the lower potential limit from 0 to − 0.2 V resulted in a leaf-like dendritic structure, irrespective of the Pt precursor used. Leaf-like dendritic structures showed enhanced formic acid oxidation activity with high mass activity and superior stability compared to flower-like structures. The superior performance of the leaf-like structure was clearly evident from fuel cell polarization studies carried out at 70 °C, which showed a maximum power density of 49 mW cm−2, whereas flower-like structures showed a power density of 20 mW cm−2.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras for the financial support. We acknowledge the Department of Science and Technology, DST-FIST, for providing the instrumentation facility to the Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Madras.

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    Volga Muthukumar & Raghuram Chetty

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Muthukumar, V., Chetty, R. Electrodeposited Pt–Pd dendrite on carbon support as anode for direct formic acid fuel cells. Ionics 24, 3937–3947 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11581-018-2526-2

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