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pp.233-239
The electrocatalytic behavior of the PtCo catalyst supported on the multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) has been evaluated and compared with commercial Pt/C catalyst in a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell(PEMFC). A PtCo/MWNTs electrocatalyst with a Pt:Co atomic ratio of 79:21 was synthesized and applied to a cathode of PEMFC. The structure and morphology of the synthesized PtCo/MWNTs electrocatalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. As a result of the X-ray studies, the crystal structure of a PtCo particle was determined to be a face-centered cubic(FCC) that was the same as the platinum structure. The particle size of PtCo in PtCo/MWNTs and Pt in Pt/C were 2.0 nm and 2.7 nm, respectively, which were calculated by Scherrer's formula from X-ray diffraction data. As a result we concluded that the specific surface activity of PtCo/MWNTs is superior to Pt/C's activity because of its smaller particle size. From the electrochemical impedance measurement, the membrane electrode assembly(MEA) fabricated with PtCo/MWNTs showed smaller anodic and cathodic activation losses than the MEA with Pt/C, although ohmic loss was the same as Pt/C. Finally, from the evaluation of cyclic voltammetry(CV), the unit cell using PtCo/MWNTs as the cathode electrocatalyst showed slightly higher fuel cell performance than the cell with a commercial Pt/C electrocatalyst.
