Ordered Mesoporous Carbon Supported Pem Fuel Cell Cathode Catalyst for Improved Oxygen Transport

In this study, ordered mesoporous carbon (OMC) was evaluated as a viable carbon support in place of widely used high surface area (HSC or Ketjenblack® EC-300J) and Vulcan supports. The OMC carbon has significant mesoporous (pore diameter from 2-5 nm) volume in an ordered fashion thereby enabling improved access of Pt sites to O 2 transport. The measured local oxygen transport resistance (R(O 2 )-local) of Pt supported OMC was quite low (3 s/cm) compared to that of HSC (15.9 s/cm) and Vulcan (8.3 s/cm). Also, Pt/OMC exhibited better beginning of life (BOL) fuel cell performance under H 2 -Air at 80 ºC compared to that of Pt/V and Pt/HSC at high current densities (> 1.5 A/cm 2 ). Finally, voltage cycling measurements (30,000 cycles) were done to measure the durability of the electrocatalysts. Both Pt/HSC and Pt/OMC showed comparable fuel cell performance at end of test (EOT) especially at high current densities. In summary, our physical and electrochemical study of Pt/OMC suggest that it could be a potential replacement to the widely used HSC and Vulcan carbon supports