Improving the catalytic activity of carbon supported platinum-cobalt nanoparticle for the oxygen reduction reaction via post treatment surface modifications = Improving the catalytic activity of carbon supported platinum-cobalt nanoparticle for the oxygen reduction reaction via post treatment surface modifications

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) are a sort of electrochemical devices that exerts the conversion of chemical energy into electrical energy under low operating temperatures. Due to the sluggish oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in PEMFC, oxygen electrode catalysts that lower the overpotential are of significant importance. To reduce the usage of Pt, well known to be the best ORR catalyst but extremely expensive, research continues to be done to develop Pt-based catalysts that have been treated to create a Pt enriched surface. Herein we synthesized carbon supported Platinum-Cobalt nanoparticles and conducted acid and heat treatments to provide evidence of improved ORR activity due to a Pt rich surface structure. Physical and electrochemical characterizations were determined using tools such as X-ray diffraction, cyclic voltammetry (CV), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS).