Nanostructured Coral-like Carbon as Pt Support for Fuel Cells

Abstract

A coral-like carbon material (Coral-C) is synthesized by growing curled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) onto carbon black (Lamp Black) to incorporate the unique structures and properties of the two nanostructured carbons, CNTs and carbon spheres. This Coral-C, having a good electronic conductivity, is used as a supporting material for Pt nanocatalyst for application in fuel cell electrodes. The Pt nanoparticles, being synthesized by a ligand exchange method, are stabilized on Coral-C though an enhanced deposition process with poly(oxyproplyene)diamines. The Coral-C supported Pt catalyst shows excellent electrochemical active area (102.5 m 2 g −1 Pt), good catalytic activity toward methanol oxidation (1.5 times higher than E-TEK Pt/C), and good power output in single DMFC (1.3 times better than E-TEK Pt/C), which could be attributed to the unique nanostructure of the catalyst: high conductivity of the surface accessible support and highly distributed Pt nanoparticles. The successful advancement in this coral-like nanostructure design for fuel cell catalyst presents a significant achievement in both the scientific and engineering fields.