Layered platinum alloy smashes US fuel cell targets

Platinum is widely used as a catalyst in hydrogen vehicles, but the element’s high cost is a factor in holding back adoption of the technology. Researchers have long sought to combine the precious metal with other, more abundant elements to form alloys. However, these alloy catalysts tend to degrade quickly in fuel cell conditions, with the non-platinum component getting oxidised and leached away.

To overcome this conundrum, the Brown team fashioned platinum-cobalt nanoparticles with a specialised structure designed to withstand the conditions inside a fuel cell. The particles have a pure platinum outer shell surrounding a core made from alternating layers of platinum and cobalt atoms. According to the researchers, that layered core structure is key to the catalyst's reactivity and durability.

"The layered arrangement of atoms in the core helps to smooth and tighten the platinum lattice in the outer shell," said Shouheng Sun, Professor of chemistry at Brown and senior author of the research, which appears in Joule.