Research on UO2 modification of a direct ethanol fuel cell Pt/C catalyst

Dashu Pan; Yubing Xue; Songtao Xiao; Yinggen Ouyang; Feng Zuo; Fuyan Lou; Xiang Li

doi:10.1039/d2ra02414d

Research on UO₂ modification of a direct ethanol fuel cell Pt/C catalyst

RSC Adv. 2022 Aug 12;12(35):22565-22573. doi: 10.1039/d2ra02414d. eCollection 2022 Aug 10.

Authors

Dashu Pan¹, Yubing Xue¹, Songtao Xiao¹, Yinggen Ouyang¹, Feng Zuo², Fuyan Lou¹, Xiang Li¹

Affiliations

¹ China Institute of Atomic Energy Beijing 102413 China.
² School of Nuclear Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University Xi'an 710049 China.

Abstract

Radioactive UO₂ powder was prepared by hydrothermal method and a set of Pt-xUO₂/C catalysts were synthesized by impregnation method for solving the problem of low activity and easy poisoning of anode Pt/C catalysts for a direct ethanol fuel cell. XRD, TEM, EDS, XPS and ICP-MS characterization showed the successful loading of Pt and UO₂ onto the carbon carrier. Electrochemical workstation and single cell test results confirm that the catalytic performance of Pt-10% UO₂/C is significantly better than Pt/C-eg. It is speculated that the synergistic effect of Pt and U enhances the catalytic activity and UO₂ improves the resistance to CO poisoning by releasing O₂ stored in the lattice space, while the α-particles released by ²³⁵U can also generate radiolysis product OH and promote the oxidative desorption of CO from the Pt surface.