2P-355 : Precursor Engineering for Active and Durable Ordered Intermetallic L10-PtFe Nanoparticles as Superior Oxygen Reduction Electrocatalyst

Minimized use of Pt in the cathode of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell has been a long goal for fuel cell economy. However, both activity and stability of Pt-M (M=Transition metals) alloy nanocatalysts are insufficient for practical application to PEMFC, especially because of poor stability of transition metals. One of the important concepts to resolve this problem is ordered intermetallic system, where the maximized activity and minimized dissolution can be achieved. Nevertheless, there has been only limited approaches to mitigate severe nanoparticle agglomeration during high-temperature annealing. To tackle this problem, we propose a new synthetic concept of bimetallic precursor for obtaining uniform ordered intermetallic PtFe nanocrystals under the protection of in situ formed N-doped carbon shell. The efficacy of the new approach is confirmed by both superior oxygen reduction activity and durable stability during the long-term accelerated degradation test.