Abstract
The hydrogen fuel cell is a quiet and clean energy conversion technology that offers a sustainable and carbon-free alternative to the combustion of fossil fuels. A major advantage of this technology is that when pure hydrogen is used as the fuel, the only products are water, heat, and electricity. The oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) occurs at the cathode in a hydrogen fuel cell, but its slow kinetics have a detrimental effect on efficiency. Therefore, the use of electrocatalytic materials is required to achieve reasonable reaction rates. Platinum provides the best electrocatalytic performance but is expensive, scarce, and in demand from many industries. As such, alternatives with less platinum or platinum-free must be developed. Electrocatalytic materials must also withstand harsh operating conditions and be producible on a large scale if the widespread practical application of fuel cell technology is to be realized. Since the ORR occurs at the surface of electrocatalytic materials, nanostructured materials offer better activities than their bulk counterparts due to their increased surface areas. The scalable and reliable synthesis of nanostructured materials with specific sizes, shapes, compositions, and suitable stabilities is a research hotspot.
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Gray, D.E., Munshi, T., Scowen, I., Brett, D.J.L., He, G. (2022). Nanostructured Electrocatalysts for Fuel Cell Applications. In: Gupta, R. (eds) Handbook of Energy Materials. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4480-1_34-1
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