The University of Science and Technology of China was informed that the research team of Hefei Microscale Materials Science National Research Center, Professor Zeng Jie and Professor Huang Hongwen of Hunan University have developed a new type of nanowire catalyst with a diameter of only 1 nanometer.

According to reports, the proton exchange membrane fuel cell cathode catalyst has excellent catalytic activity and stability, and is expected to significantly reduce the optimal battery price of electric vehicles in the future.

The results were recently published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The proton exchange membrane fuel cell has the advantages of zero emission, high energy efficiency and adjustable power. It is the most ideal driving power source for electric vehicles in the future and has broad market prospects. However, the kinetics of the oxygen reduction reaction at the cathode end of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell is very slow, and a large amount of noble metal platinum nanocatalyst is required as an electrode catalyst to maintain efficient operation of the battery, which makes the cost of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell very high, which Limiting its large-scale commercial applications.

At present, many reported platinum-based catalysts have excellent mass activity, but most of them are not stable enough because the structure on which high-quality activity depends is thermodynamically unstable and develops high-quality and platinum-based catalysts with excellent stability. Extremely challenging

Faced with this problem, the researchers developed ultrafine platinum-nickel-niobium ternary metal nanowire catalysts by fine-tuning the size, size and composition of platinum-based catalysts. Since the nanowires are only 1 nanometer in diameter, the surface platinum atoms account for more than 50% of the total platinum atomic ratio, exhibiting an extremely high atomic utilization rate and providing a structural basis for high catalyst activity.

Tests have shown that the mass activity of the nanowire catalyst is 15.2 times that of the current commercial platinum carbon nanocatalyst. At the same time, after the catalyst was recycled 10,000 times in an oxygen atmosphere, only 12.8% of the mass activity was lost.

Zeng Jie said that compared with the current commercial platinum carbon nanocatalyst, the carbon-supported ultrafine platinum-nickel-niobium ternary metal nanowire catalyst has significant improvement in mass activity and catalytic stability, and has good application potential.

SAT nano Technology Material Co., Ltd. supply series of nanowires with different specification, such as copper nanowire, silver nanowire, copper oxide nanowires, copper hydroxide nanorods, please feel free to ask us the details.