Electrooxidation of hydrogen at Pt/carbon nanotube catalysts for hydrogen–air fuel cell

Abstract

A possibility for application of the method of thin-layer rotating disk electrode (RDE) for investigation of kinetics of hydrogen electrooxidation on highly dispersed platinum catalysts formed on the carbon nanotubes (CNT) is studied. It is shown that the polarization curves of hydrogen oxidation on the studied catalysts approach the calculated curves for the diffusion overpotential of hydrogen reaction both in the acidic and alkaline electrolytes. This is the evidence, on the one hand, for a high activity of proposed catalysts in the hydrogen oxidation reaction and, on the other hand, for incorrect use of the Koutecky–Levich equation for calculating the kinetic currents in the case under consideration. The characteristics of hydrogen–oxygen fuel cell (FC) with anode based of synthesized 40Pt/CNT catalysts are highly comparative with the characteristics of FC containing commercial 60Pt catalyst (HiSPEC 9100) on the anode.