Publication

Mustain Group Develops High Performance Fuel Cell Catalyst

CBE Professor William Mustain and Ph.D. candidate Ying Liu have reported, in a paper published in the February issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2013, 135(2), pp 530–533; DOI: 10.1021/ja307635r), that a new catalyst material using tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) nanoparticles (NPs) as a high stability non-carbon support for platinum (Pt) nanoparticles has great potential as a next-generation catalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells.  As Liu and Mustain explain in their paper: “Sn was employed as the In2O3 dopant to exploit the strong interaction between Sn and Pt that was previously reported to enhance the activity of Pt on Pt/SnO2, while concomitantly avoiding the intrinsic stability limitations of SnO2 and leveraging the high stability of bulk In2O3 at ORR relevant potentials” This Pt/ITO catalyst showed mass activity that far surpassed the 2015 U.S. Department of Energy goal for Pt mass activity, and the stability of the Pt/ITO was remarkable under harsh conditions.  In the future, Dr. Mustain and Ms. Liu will continue to improve the long-term stability of Pt/ITO and investigate its performance in PEM fuel cell stacks.

Structure and Performance of Pt/ITO Electrocatalysts
Structure and Performance of Pt/ITO Electrocatalysts