In recent years, polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFC) using hydrogen and methanol as fuel, respectively, have been attracting interest because the application areas of PEFC is expanding in the fuel cell electric vehicle, household fuel cell and portable fuel cell [1,2]. In this fuel cells, electricity is directly generated by electrochemical reactions such as hydrogen and methanol oxidation reaction at the fuel electrode and oxygen reduction reaction(ORR) at the air electrode, thus providing a high electrical efficiency and environmentally friendly. To carry out such an electrochemical reaction in the electrode, the supported catalyst on which the active precious metal is dispersed with high dispersion is essential [1,2]. That is, the supported catalyst is usually composed of a support and catalytically active elements such as Pt, Pd, Ru. In general, carbon materials having a high electrical conductivity, a large specific surface area, and a high chemical stability is applied as a support for an electrochemical catalyst [2]. Among the nanostructured carbon materials, the ordered mesoporous carbon (OMC), which have a large surface area and very well-connected the mesopores has been developed as a novel support for the fuel cell applications [3,4]. In this presentation, I would like to explain the brief history of the development of OMC support by authors for the PEFC such as direct methanol fuel cell and proton exchange membrane fuel cell. For example, Pt supported on the S-containing OMC(S-OMC) showed a higher thermal stability compared to the carbon black and pure OMC due to the strong metal-support interaction [5]. In addition, composite support between OMC and SiC for enhancing the catalytic stability of Pt toward the ORR will be presented as a recent example [6]. The composite supports are prepared by changing the temperature for the carbonization process during the nano-template method [6]. The SiC contents in the composite support were increased by increasing the temperatures. The Pt catalyst supported on the composite support showed excellent activity stability for ORR compared to the Pt particles on the pristine OMC and commercial Pt/C catalyst.

[1] Y.-J. Wang, N. Zhao, B. Fang, H. Li, X. T. Bi, and H. Wang, Chem. Rev.,115, 3433 (2015).

[2] C. Wang, S. Wang, L. Peng, J. Zhang, Z. Shao, J. Huang, C. Sun, M. Ouyang, and X. He, Energies, 9, 603 (2016).

[3] A. Eftekhari and Z. Fan, Mater. Chem. Front., 1, Advance Article (2017).

[4] H. Chang, S. H. Joo, and C. Pak, J. Mater. Chem. 17, 3078 (2007).

[5] H. I. Lee, S. H. Joo, J. H. Kim, D. J. You, J. M. Kim, J.-N. Park, H. Chang, and C. Pak, J. Mater. Chem., 19, 5934 (2009).

[6] D. J. You, X. Jin, J. H. Kim, S.-A. Jin, S. Lee, K. H. Choi, W. J. Baek, C. Pak, and J. M. Kim, Int. J. Hydrogen Energy, 40, 12352 (2015).