A facile synthesis and assembly of ultrasmall Pt nanoparticles on reduced graphene oxide‑carbon black hybrid for enhanced performance in PEMFC

Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2018.04.041

A new and straightforwardapproach for the synthesis of ultrasmalland monodisperse Pt nanoparticles(NPs) andtheir controlled assembly on graphene based supports including reduced graphene oxide (rGO), commercial car-bon black (VC) and rGO-VC hybrid were reported. These supported NPs were utilized as the electrocatalysts forpolymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFC). Surfactant-assisted reduction of platinum(II) acetylacetonatein hot organic solution yielded 1.2 nm Pt NPs. These ultrasmall Pt NPs were decorated on rGO, VC and the rGO-VChybrid by using a simple liquid-phase self-assembly method. In the previous studies on Pt/rGO-VC hybrids, onone hand, Pt NPs were synthesized in situ on support, on the other hand, VC was added to synthesized Pt/rGO,and their fuel cell performance have been rarely shown. In our study, rGO and VC were directly mixed and pre-pared Pt NPs were assembled on rGO-VC hybrid support. Pt/rGO-VC hybrid electrocatalyst possessed substan-tially better electrocatalytic activity owing to better utilization of Pt compared to Pt/rGO and Pt/VC. Membrane electrode assemblies based on resultant catalysts were characterized in-situ in PEMFC. A superior PEMFC performance of 857 mW cm−2(maximum power density) was achieved with the hybrid catalyst as compared to Pt NPs supported on rGO or VC.