Investigation of carbon supported PtW catalysts as CO tolerant anodes at high temperature in proton exchange membrane fuel cell

Abstract The CO tolerance mechanism and the stability of carbon supported PtW electrocatalysts are evaluated in the anode of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) at two different temperatures. The electrocatalysts are characterized by energy dispersive spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and transmission electron spectroscopy. Employed electrochemical techniques include cyclic voltammetry, CO stripping, fuel cell polarization, and online mass spectrometry. At a cell temperature of 85 °C, the PtW/C catalyst shows higher CO tolerance compared to Pt/C due an electronic effect of WO x in the Pt 5d band, which reduces the CO adsorption. An increase in hydrogen oxidation activity in the presence of CO is observed for both the catalysts at a higher temperature, due to the decrease of the Pt-CO coverage. A reduction in the current densities occurs for the PtW/C catalyst in both polarization curves and cyclic voltammograms after 5000 cycles of the anode in the range of 0.1–0.7 V vs. RHE at 50 mVs −1 . This decrease in performance is assigned to the dissolution of W, with a consequent increase in the membrane resistivity. However, the observed decline of performance is small either in the presence of pure H 2 or in the presence of H 2 /CO.