Review and Perspectives of Carbon-Supported Platinum-Based Catalysts for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells

The proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is a fast growing next-generation energy conversion technology, which has broad application prospects in electric vehicles, such as portable power supplies, fixed power supplies, and the military industry. The development of PEMFCs has attracted much attention due to their high energy conversion efficiency, good low-temperature startup performance, no pollution, no noise, and other advantages. However, the cathodic oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) kinetics in fuel cells is slow. It is therefore necessary that we use a large number of carbon-supported platinum (Pt)-based catalysts in order to speed up the reaction. As a result, the current problems of high cost and low durability of carbon-supported Pt-based catalysts have become a major reason for limiting the successful commercialization of fuel cells. To meet the requirements of high catalytic activity and high stability of carbon-supported Pt-based catalysts, this review summarizes the research progress and methods for optimizing the performance of carbon-supported Pt-based catalysts for PEMFCs. In addition, this review highlights the current progress in improving the performance of carbon-supported Pt-based catalysts in terms of the reduction of particle size, exposure of highly active crystal surfaces, control of Pt particle morphology, and preparation of Pt–M alloys as well as some support characteristics and preparation technologies. Furthermore, the development of carbon-supported Pt-based catalysts in the direction of fuel cells and the main challenges they will face in practical applications are also proposed in this review. In summary, the carbon-supported Pt-based catalysts optimized using the above methods show great potential in the ORR. With continuous improvement of preparation and characterization technologies, carbon-supported Pt-based catalysts have broad applications and market prospects.