Reduction of Pt Usage in Fuel Cell Electrocatalysts Using Carbon Nanotubes and Non-Pt Metals

1Introduction The high-priced and limited Pt constitutes a high barrier to commercialization of fuel cells. Pt is essential for the electrode catalyst of polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs). A reduction in Pt usage is one of the key requirements for the commercialization of fuel cells for use in everyday life, because of its high price and limited availability, and the difficulty of finding suitable substitutes. Non-Pt fuel cell catalysts will decrease the demand for Pt by PEFCs, enabling more Pt to be available for use in other essential products, and make fuel cells more popular[1]. The cheaper Mo2C is known to possess similar catalytic activities and electronic structures to Pt[2]. Carbon black (CB) is widely used as the support for Pt nanoparticles. However, we found that when carbon nanotubes (CNTs) rather than CB are used as the support, the performance is improved, especially below 600 mA/cm2[3,4]. Here, we show that a combination of Mo2C catalyst and carbon nanotubes in the anode provides performance as high as half that of the current PEFCs with Pt catalysts below 600mA/cm2.