Ordered mesoporous carbon (OMC) has been getting more and more attention due to its large specific surface area and mono-dispersed three-dimensionally interconnected mesopores, which are necessary to obtain highly and uniformly dispersed catalytic metal particles with improved mass transfer properties. In this work, a series of platinum nanoparticles supported on high surface area OMC electrocatalysts with different Pt loading have been synthesized for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) applications. The OMC was synthesized using in-house prepared hexagonal SBA-15 as a hard template and sucrose was used as source of carbon. The catalysts are characterized by using N2 adsorption-desorption isotherm (BET), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), small angle x-ray diffraction (XRD), thermo-gravimetric and differential calorimetric analysis (TGA-DSC), temperature programmed reduction (TPR), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). BET results showed that the synthesized mesoporous carbon possesses a high surface area of about 1000 m2/g. TEM and XRD results confirm the ordered mesoporous structure of the carbon. The FTIR spectra showed the complete removal of the Silica template. The catalysts will be tested for its performance and polarization on the 5 cm2 membrane electrode assembly (MEAs) under controlled experimental conditions. The effect of humidity, pressure and temperature on the performance of electrocatalysts will be presented.  Reference Sharmin, S., S. Irulappan, and S. Ilias. 'Synthesis of novel electro-catalysts for proton exchange membrane fuel cells.' Separation science and technology 38.12-13 (2003): 2963-2977.

Development of ordered mesosporous carbon supported low Pt loading electrocatalysts

248th National Meeting (2014)

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