How to appropriately assess the oxygen reduction reaction activity of platinum group metal catalysts with rotating disk electrode
Yun-Fei Xia,
Pan Guo,
Jia-Zhan Li,
Lei Zhao,
Xu-Lei Sui,
Yan Wang,
Zhen-Bo Wang
Affiliations
Yun-Fei Xia
MIIT Key Laboratory of Critical Materials Technology for New Energy Conversion and Storage, State Key Lab of Urban Water Resources and Environment, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China; School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
Pan Guo
MIIT Key Laboratory of Critical Materials Technology for New Energy Conversion and Storage, State Key Lab of Urban Water Resources and Environment, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
Jia-Zhan Li
Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Lei Zhao
MIIT Key Laboratory of Critical Materials Technology for New Energy Conversion and Storage, State Key Lab of Urban Water Resources and Environment, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China; Corresponding author
Xu-Lei Sui
Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Special Functional Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China; Corresponding author
Yan Wang
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
Zhen-Bo Wang
MIIT Key Laboratory of Critical Materials Technology for New Energy Conversion and Storage, State Key Lab of Urban Water Resources and Environment, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China; Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Special Functional Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China; Corresponding author
Summary: The sluggish oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) has becoming the bottleneck of largescale implementation of proton exchange membrane fuel cells. However, when it comes to the ORR activity assessing of platinum group metals (PGMs) with rotating disk electrode, the corresponding potential conversion vs. reversible hydrogen electrode, test protocols, and activity calculation processes are still in chaos in many published literatures. In this work, two standard calculation processes for PGM ORR activities are demonstrated, followed by a specification for the usage of reference electrodes. Then a 4-fold discrepancy in ORR activities obtained via different test protocols is found for the same Pt/C, and an average adsorption model and the “coverage effects” are proposed to illustrate the hysteresis loop between negative and positive-going ORR polarization plots. Finally, four motions over appropriate assessment of PGM ORR activity are emphasized, hoping to bring a fair communication platform for researchers from different groups.
