The effect of catalyst support on the performance of PtRu in direct borohydride fuel cell anodes

A comparative investigation of direct borohydride fuel cell polarization behavior (DBFC) was carried out with respect to the effect of unsupported and supported PtRu anode catalysts using as supports both Vulcan XC-72R and graphite felt (GF). The Vulcan XC-72R-supported catalyst alleviated mass-transfer-related problems associated with hydrogen generation from borohydride hydrolysis taking place mainly on the Ru sites. However, the most significant improvement was obtained by using the three-dimensional GF support. Typically 1.0 mg cm−2 PtRu was galvanostatically electrodeposited by a surfactant templated method on compressed graphite felt of 350 μm thickness. The PtRu/GF anode (Pt:Ru atomic ratio of 1.4:1) generated a DBFC peak power density of 130 mW cm−2 at 333 K. The separator in the DBFC was a Nafion® 117 membrane. The peak power density of the PtRu/GF was 270% and 60% higher compared with the catalyst-coated membrane configuration with unsupported PtRu and PtRu/Vulcan XC-72R, respectively.