The state-of-the-art Fe/N/C catalyst has presented comparable initial cathode performance to the benchmark Pt/C catalyst in proton exchange membrane fuel cells(PEMFCs).However,the major bottleneck is its significant a...The state-of-the-art Fe/N/C catalyst has presented comparable initial cathode performance to the benchmark Pt/C catalyst in proton exchange membrane fuel cells(PEMFCs).However,the major bottleneck is its significant activity decay in real-world PEMFC cells.The superposed“fast decay”and“slow decay”have been well documented to describe the degradation process of Fe/N/C catalysts during PEMFC operation.The fast decay has been well understood in close relation to the demetallation at the initial 15-h stability test.Nevertheless,it is still unclear how the remanent active sites evolve after demetallation.To this end,the catalyst performance and evolution of a typical Fe/N/C active site were herein investigated through postmortem characterizations of the membrane electrode assemblies(MEAs)after different operations.It is presented that 1 bar pressure and 80℃ temperature are the optimized conditions for Fe/N/C MEA.Particularly,the“fast decay”in the initial 15 h is immune to the various operating parameters,while the“slow decay”highly depends on the applied temperature and pressure.According to the X-ray absorption spectra(XAS)analysis and stability test of MEA,the gradual evolution of Fe-N coordination to Fe-O is found correlated with the“slow decay”and accounts for the catalyst decay after the demetallation process.展开更多
基金financially supported by the Fundamental Re-search Funds for the Central Universities(No.2023CDJXY-016)the Outstanding Youth Project of Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province(Grant No.2022B1515020020).
文摘The state-of-the-art Fe/N/C catalyst has presented comparable initial cathode performance to the benchmark Pt/C catalyst in proton exchange membrane fuel cells(PEMFCs).However,the major bottleneck is its significant activity decay in real-world PEMFC cells.The superposed“fast decay”and“slow decay”have been well documented to describe the degradation process of Fe/N/C catalysts during PEMFC operation.The fast decay has been well understood in close relation to the demetallation at the initial 15-h stability test.Nevertheless,it is still unclear how the remanent active sites evolve after demetallation.To this end,the catalyst performance and evolution of a typical Fe/N/C active site were herein investigated through postmortem characterizations of the membrane electrode assemblies(MEAs)after different operations.It is presented that 1 bar pressure and 80℃ temperature are the optimized conditions for Fe/N/C MEA.Particularly,the“fast decay”in the initial 15 h is immune to the various operating parameters,while the“slow decay”highly depends on the applied temperature and pressure.According to the X-ray absorption spectra(XAS)analysis and stability test of MEA,the gradual evolution of Fe-N coordination to Fe-O is found correlated with the“slow decay”and accounts for the catalyst decay after the demetallation process.
