This study focuses on the development of ordered mesoporous carbon supported platinum complexes for low temperature electrochemical oxidation of methane in a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell. A series of platinum-based single-site catalysts have been covalently anchored onto the surface of ordered mesoporous carbon (OMC) through our recently developed defect-mediated approach. For the first time, these molecular catalysts tethered onto OMC have been demonstrated to be active for the design of considerably challenging direct methane PEM fuel cell operated at 80°C. Out of the six catalysts tested, a maximum normalized power of 403 µW/mg Pt was obtained which was 5 times higher than a modern commercial catalyst and two orders of magnitude greater than Pt black catalyst. Based on the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy data, a possible explanation exists for the observed differences in the catalytic activities for oxidation of methane with these OMC supported molecular systems. We envision that this structure/activity relationship demonstrated here would help the design of better catalytic systems for enhancing the performance and overcoming the challenges involved in the development of direct methane PEM fuel cell for commercial applications. <br/>

Designing catalysts for the development of low  temperature direct methane fuel cells<br />

249th National Meeting (2015)

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