Wednesday, 2 November 2005 - 1:10 PM
361b

High Performance of Direct Methanol Fuel Cell with Double Walled Carbon Nanotubes Film Supported Ptru as Anode Catalyst

Wenzhen Li1, Xin Wang2, Zhongwei Chen1, Mahesh M. Waje3, and Yushan Yan1. (1) Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Riverside, Bourns Hall A242, Riverside, CA 92521, (2) Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Riverside, Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA 92507, (3) University of California Riverside, 1122 Linden street, # 105, Riverside, CA 92507

In this presentation, we used a polyol method to prepare 3 types of CNTs (SWNTs, DWNTs and MWNTs) supported PtRu electrocatalysts. XRD and TEM characterizations shows PtRu nano-particles with a very small particle size and shallow size distribution (2-3 nm) are dispersed onto CNTs uniformly. A modified filtration method was employed to prepare compact PtRu/CNTs film as anode catalyst layer for DMFC. The compact layer has a uniform thickness of 7-8 um for MWNTs and 15-20 um for DWNTs. In RDE test, PtRu/DWNTs exhibits an exceptional high methanol oxidation specific activity compare to PtRu/MWNTs and PtRu/XC-72 samples. The compact MWNTs and DWNTs film based MEAs show better DMFC performance than the traditional MEA. This is probably attributed to its higher specific activity towards methanol oxidation reaction and compact film structure, which offers a good mixture with Nafion and will facilitate methanol transportation. The DMFC with a compact PtRu/DMWTs (50wt%) film with a PtRu electrode loading of 0.34 mg/cm2 have the highest power density of 131 mW/cm2, which is 68 % higher that the traditional MEA with a PtRu metal loading of 2.0 mg/cm2.

See more of #361 - Issues in Carbon Nanotubes II: Characterization, Functionalization and Applications (TG002)
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