Enhanced CO Oxidation and Cyclic Activities in Three-Dimensional Platinum/Indium Tin Oxide/Carbon Black Electrocatalysts Processed by Cathodic Arc Deposition

There have been extensive efforts to develop competitive electrocatalysts using carbon black supports for high-performance proton-exchange membrane fuel cells with less usage of Pt. Herein, we propose a very promising electrocatalyst architecture based on three-dimensional Pt-indium tin oxide (ITO)-carbon black (CB) support structure which was enabled by a nonconventional deposition process ensuring very uniform impregnation of Pt and ITO nanoparticles into the CB network. The unusual scales of the Pt (~1.9 nm) and ITO (~5.6 nm) nanoparticles were directly related to unexpectedly better performance of the electrocatalytic activities. As a highlight, the electrochemical surface area of the electrocatalyst was maintained very well after the 3,000 cycles-accelerated durability evaluation by demonstrating an excellent retainment of ~74.9%. Particularly, the CO tolerance exhibited a low value of ~0.68 V as absorption current peak, compared to ~0.79 V for a commercial Pt/CB catalyst containing twice more Pt.