Environmentally Friendly Carbon-Preserving Recovery of Noble Metals From Supported Fuel Cell Catalysts

The dissolution of noble-metal catalysts under mild and carbon-preserving conditions offers the possibility of insitu regeneration of the catalyst nanoparticles in fuel cells or other applications. Here, we report on the complete dissolution of the fuel cell catalyst, platinum nanoparticles, under very mild conditions at room temperature in 0.1M HClO4 and 0.1M HCl by electrochemical potential cycling between 0.5-1.1V at a scan rate of 50mVs(-1). Dissolution rates as high as 22.5gcm(-2) per cycle were achieved, which ensured a relatively short dissolution timescale of 3-5h for a Pt loading of 0.35mgcm(-2) on carbon. The influence of chloride ions and oxygen in the electrolyte on the dissolution was investigated, and a dissolution mechanism is proposed on the basis of the experimental observations and available literature results. During the dissolution process, the corrosion of the carbon support was minimal, as observed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS).