Alternative carbon materials as practical and more durable fuel cell electrocatalyst supports than conventional carbon blacks

Conventional low-temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cell (LTPEMFC) electrocatalyst supports suffer from excessively high corrosion rates. In this work, several alternative carbons were investigated in terms of their viability to produce 'drop-in' alternative electrocatalysts to the conventional materials while providing significantly enhanced support corrosion resistance. This was to establish their potential to serve both current and future markets. The materials examined were: partially graphitised Vulcan, a hierarchical porous graphene-like material and commercial graphitised carbon nanofiberes (CNFs). Samples were prepared at 40 wt% Pt loading and performance compared to conventional Pt (40wt%)/Vulcan and Pt (40wt%)/Ketjenblack. CNFs were the only material to display improved corrosion resistance over the conventional supports. The catalyst did, however, suffer from comparatively low beginning-of-life performance. This work did nonetheless demonstrate good promise for the commercial CNF support in producing functional electrocatalysts that could (a) potentially be directly substituted into well-established conventional catalyst-based MEA manufacturing processes and (b) offer considerably enhanced support corrosion resistance.