It has been found that the durability of Pt/C in alkaline solutions is worse than in acidic medium during potential cycling.1 The durability of Pd/C, which shows even higher activity toward oxygen reduction reaction than Pt/C in alkaline solutions, has not been systematically studied. In this study, the commercial Pt/C (46%, TEC10E50E, TKK) and Pd/C (30%, TECPdE30, TKK) were chosen to evaluate the durability during potential cycling in various potential windows and cycling patterns. The potential decay in terms of half-wave potential was compared after 2500, 5000 and 10000 cycles. It was found that the Pd/C had a much better durability than Pt/C under the same conditions. The dissolution of metal nanoparticles was detected by utilizing an electrochemical cell directly coupled to an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) to understand the origins of the higher stability of Pd/C.

References

1. Anicet Zadick, Laetitia Dubau, Nicolas Sergent, Gregory Berthome, and Marian Chatenet. Huge instability of Pt/C catalysts in alkaline medium[J]. ACS Catalysis, 2015, 5(8): 4819-4824.