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Embedded oxide clusters stabilize sub-2 nm Pt nanoparticles for highly durable fuel cells

Abstract

Platinum (Pt) nanocatalysts are essential for facilitating the cathodic oxygen reduction reaction in proton exchange membrane fuel cells but suffer from a trade-off between activity and durability. Here we present the design of a fine nanocatalyst comprising Pt nanoparticles with sparsely embedded cobalt oxide clusters (CoOx@Pt). This design exploits the strong Pt/oxide interaction, which grants the catalyst its high structural and chemical durability without sacrificing activity. The CoOx@Pt nanocatalyst delivers a high initial mass activity of 1.10 A mgPt−1, a rated power density of 1.04 W cm−2 and a Pt utilization of 10.4 W mgPt−1 in a membrane electrode assembly. It exhibits a notably high durability that features a mass activity retention of 88.2%, a voltage loss of 13.3 mV at 0.8 A cm−2 and a small rated power loss of 7.5% after accelerated stress testing. This durability could offer a long projected lifetime of 15,000 hours and may greatly reduce the lifetime-adjusted cost.

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Fig. 1: Schematic illustration of fuel cell architecture and our catalyst design.
Fig. 2: Synthesis and structural characterization of CoOx@Pt supported on carbon.
Fig. 3: MEA performance of CoOx@Pt/C, c-PtCo/C and c-Pt/C catalysts.
Fig. 4: Size, composition and CO stripping analyses of catalysts at BOL and EOL.
Fig. 5: Simulation results for the representative GM configurations.

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Data availability

The data that support the major findings of this study are available in the main text or the Supplementary Information. Data on the local minima structures described in the main text that support the findings of this study are available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11174993 (ref. 74). Further data are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

Code availability

Proprietary codes are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request under a license agreement with the owner.

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Acknowledgements

B.P., Z.L., Q.J., Z.Z., J.H., X.D. and Y.H. gratefully acknowledge the Office of Naval Research (ONR) grant N00014-18-1-2155 for initial studies. Z.L. also acknowledges support from the UCLA Dissertation Year Fellowship. A.F. and L.S. gratefully acknowledge computational support from the Cineca Supercomputing Center (Italy). We acknowledge the use of facilities in the Irvine Materials Research Institute (IMRI) at the University of California Irvine. We also thank the Electron Imaging Center of Nanomachines at CNSI for TEM support. We acknowledge the training and help from I. Martini for the XPS data collection at the UCLA Molecular Instrumentation Center. The XAS data were collected at beamlines 6-BM and 8-ID (ISS) of the National Synchrotron Light Source II, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Brookhaven National Laboratory under contract no. DE-SC0012704. Networking within the COST Action CA21101 ‘Confined molecular systems: from a new generation of materials to the stars’ (COSY) supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) is also acknowledged.

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Contributions

Research design and conceptualization was by Y.H. and X.D. Experimental design and execution was by B.P. and Z.L. Synthesis of the electrocatalysts and structural characterization was carried out by B.P., Z.L. and Y.-H.T. MEA fabrication and electrochemical testing was performed by B.P., Z.L. and Z.Z. S/TEM and EDS characterization was by M.X., Z.L., B.P. and J.H. STEM-EELS characterization was performed by X.Y. XAS data collection and analyses were conducted by Q.S., Q.J., C.U.S. and E.L. Modelling and data analyses were by L.S. and A.F. Supervision was by Y.H. (experimental design and MEA studies), X.P. (microscopic characterization) and A.F. (simulation studies) Writing (original draught) was by B.P., X.D. and Y.H. Writing (reviewing and editing) was by B.P., Z.L., A.F., L.S., X.D. and Y.H.

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Correspondence to Alessandro Fortunelli or Yu Huang.

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Competing interests

Y.H., X.D., B.P. and Z.L. are inventors on patents (US Provisional Application No. 63/580,271) relating to the developed catalysts in this study filed by the University of California, Los Angeles. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

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Peng, B., Liu, Z., Sementa, L. et al. Embedded oxide clusters stabilize sub-2 nm Pt nanoparticles for highly durable fuel cells. Nat Catal 7, 818–828 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41929-024-01180-x

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