Combinatorial electrochemical screening of fuel cell electrocatalysts

Combinatorial methods have been applied to the preparation and screening of fuel cell electrocatalysts. Hardware and software have been developed for fast sequential measurements of cyclic voltammetric and steady-state currents in 64-element half-cell arrays. The arrays were designed for the screening of high-surface-area supported electrocatalysts. Analysis software developed allowed the semiautomated processing of the large quantities of data, applying filters that defined figures of merit relevant to fuel cell catalyst activity and tolerance. Results are presented on the screening of carbon-supported platinum catalysts of varying platinum metal loading on carbon (and thus, particle size) in order to demonstrate the speed and sensitivity of the screening methodology. CO electro-oxidation, oxygen reduction, and methanol oxidation on a series of such catalysts reveal clear trends in characteristics and activities. Catalysts with smaller particle sizes reveal structure in the CO stripping voltammetry that can be associated with edge sites in addition to the closely packed planes, and this is concomitantly reduced as particle size is increased. Specific activity for steady-state methanol oxidation and oxygen reduction at room temperature in H2SO4 electrolyte is found to be a maximum for the largest particle sizes, in agreement with the literature. These trends in activity are significantly smaller than the differences in activities of promoted platinum-based alloy catalysts for the same reaction.