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Best Practice for Evaluating Electrocatalysts for Hydrogen Economy

Bird, Matthew A.; Goodwin, Sean E.; Walsh, Darren A.

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Authors

Matthew A. Bird

Sean E. Goodwin

DARREN WALSH DARREN.WALSH@NOTTINGHAM.AC.UK
Professor of Chemistry



Abstract

Screening new electrocatalysts is key to the development of new materials for next-generation energy devices such as fuel cells and electrolysers. The counter electrodes used in such tests are often made from materials such as Pt and Au, which can dissolve during testing and deposit onto test electrocatalysts, resulting in inaccurate results. The most common strategy for preventing this effect is to separate the counter electrode from the test material using an ion-transporting Nafion membrane. Here, we use X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray analysis, mass spectrometry, and voltammetry to demonstrate the limitations of this approach during constant-current, extended stability testing of electro-catalysts for H2 evolution. We show that Nafion membranes cannot prevent contamination of carbon electrocatalysts by Pt and Au counter electrodes, leading to an apparent increase in electrocatalytic activity of the carbon. We then demonstrate that carbon counter electrodes in undivided cells can contaminate and deactivate Pt and Au electrocatalysts for H2 evolution. We show that use of a setup comprising a glass frit separating a carbon counter electrode from the test electrocatalyst can prevent these effects. Finally, we discuss these phenomena using H2 evolution at MoS2 and at a K6[P2W18O62](H2O)14/carbon nanotube composite as test reactions.

Citation

Bird, M. A., Goodwin, S. E., & Walsh, D. A. (2020). Best Practice for Evaluating Electrocatalysts for Hydrogen Economy. ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, 12(18), 20500-20506. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.0c03307

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Apr 13, 2020
Online Publication Date Apr 13, 2020
Publication Date May 6, 2020
Deposit Date Jun 30, 2020
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
Electronic ISSN 1944-8252
Publisher American Chemical Society
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 12
Issue 18
Pages 20500-20506
DOI https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.0c03307
Keywords Electrocatalysis; water splitting; counter electrode; Nafion; rotating-disk electrode; hydrogen-evolution reaction
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4295710
Publisher URL https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.0c03307
Additional Information This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces ,copyright© American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.0c03307

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