High Performance Bifunctional Pt/C-RuO2/Ti3C2Tx Catalyst for Reversal-Tolerant Anodes of Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells

The reversal-tolerant anode (RTA) has been introduced to mitigate the fatal anode degradation by cell voltage reversal under hydrogen fuel starvation in fuel cells by catalyzing the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) instead of carbon corrosion and Pt dissolution. The RuO2@Ti3C2Tx catalyst, which is obtained by the modified Adams fusion method, exhibits an HOR limit current density of 1.2 mA cm–2 and OER overpotential of 259 mV @ 10 mA cm–2, respectively. The RuO2@Ti3C2Tx with Pt/C is employed as the RTA catalyst that exhibits high fuel cell power densities of 1.26 W cm–2 in hydrogen/air and 2.54 W cm–2 in hydrogen/oxygen, respectively, Moreover, the reversal tolerant durability of the RTA catalyst under fuel starvation achieves 210 min, which is much higher than that of Pt/C(6 min). Therefore, the developed RuO2@Ti3C2Tx and Pt/C catalyst can be used to fabricate practical RTAs in the anodes of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells.