Matthew A. Bird
Best Practice for Evaluating Electrocatalysts for Hydrogen Economy
Bird, Matthew A.; Goodwin, Sean E.; Walsh, Darren A.
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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