Effect of Nanostructure of the Electrocatalyst Based on Carbon Nanotube for the Activation Overpotential for PEFC

Abstract

Polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) using liquid phosphoric acid (PA) as polymer electrolyte membrane has poor durability, due to leaching of PA from the membrane, which causes the deterioration of PEFC performance during long-term operation. To overcome this issue, poly(vinylphosphonic acid) (PVPA) was used for electrolyte instead of PA. Although this PEFC showed high durability, this catalyst had large overpotential in the area of low current density, probably due to the poisoning of Pt by PVPA coating. In this study, we explored the new preparation method to avoid the Pt poisoning and investigated the catalytic performance by electrochemical techniques.