Preparation method of Ni@Pt/C nanocatalyst affects the performance of direct borohydride-hydrogen peroxide fuel cell: Improved power density and increased catalytic oxidation of borohydride.

The Ni@Pt/C electrocatalysts were synthesized using two different methods: with sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and without SDS. The metal loading in synthesized nanocatalysts was 20wt% and the molar ratio of Ni: Pt was 1:1. The structural characterizations of Ni@Pt/C electrocatalysts were investigated by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM). The electrocatalytic activity of Ni@Pt/C electrocatalysts toward BH4- oxidation in alkaline medium was studied by means of cyclic voltammetry (CV), chronopotentiometry (CP), chronoamperometry (CA) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The results showed that Ni@Pt/C electrocatalyst synthesized without SDS has superior catalytic activity toward borohydride oxidation (22016.92AgPt-1) in comparison with a catalyst prepared in the presence of SDS (17766.15AgPt-1) in NaBH4 0.1M at 25°C. The Membrane Electrode Assembly (MEA) used in fuel cell set-up was fabricated with catalyst-coated membrane (CCM) technique. The effect of Ni@Pt/C catalysts prepared with two methods as anode catalyst on the performance of direct borohydride-hydrogen peroxide fuel cell was studied. The maximum power density was obtained using Ni@Pt/C catalyst synthesized without SDS at 60°C, 1M NaBH4 and 2M H2O2 (133.38mWcm-2).