Full text
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| Author(s): |
Luis Gustavo da Silva Pereira
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Master's Dissertation |
| Press: | São Carlos. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Química de São Carlos (IQSC/BT) |
| Defense date: | 2005-10-27 |
| Examining board members: |
Edson Antonio Ticianelli;
Nerilso Bocchi;
Adhemar Colla Ruvolo Filho
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| Advisor: | Edson Antonio Ticianelli |
| Abstract | |
The CO poisoning problem of the conventional Pt-based anode catalyst of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) has been subject of several investigations in the last years. In this work, bimetallic Pt-M electrocatalysts particles dispersed on a carbon powder (where, M = Sn, Mo, Co, Fe, Ni and W) were prepared aiming to the development CO-tolerant anodes for PEMFC. These bimetallic electrocatalysts were prepared by two different methodologies: impregnation/decomposition and reduction by formic acid. With the same purpose, changes were also made on the configuration of the gas diffusion electrode, by incorporating a potential CO filtering layer formed by several dispersed M/C materials (where M = Mo, Cu, Fe and W). All produced materials were characterized by energy dispersive (EDX) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. Evaluations of the electrochemical performance were carried out by steady state single cell polarization measurements, cyclic voltammetry and the CO-stripping technique. Regarding the bimetallic materials, the better CO-tolerance results were obtained for Pt-Mo/C and Pt-W/C prepared by the formic acid method, which generated materials with lower particles sizes. This tolerance was associated to the occurrence of the so-called bifunctional mechanism in which the Pt absorbed CO is removed by oxidation to CO2, with participation of active no-noble metal hydrous oxides. For the electrodes containing the filtering layer, the higher CO-tolerance was seen for Mo/C and W/C, and this was attributed to a lowering of the CO content in the gas channels of the gas diffusion electrode, promoted by the occurrence of the so-called water-gas shift reaction. (AU) | |