Evaluation of oxygen reduction activity by the thin-film rotating disk electrode methodology: The effects of potentiodynamic parameters

Journal Article · Mon Apr 11 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Electrocatalysis

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/s12678-016-0309-y· OSTI ID:1333204

Chen, Guangyu ^[1]; Li, Meng ^[2]; Kuttiyiel, Kurian A. ^[2]; Sasaki, Kotaro ^[2]; Kong, Fanpeng ^[3]; Du, Chunyu ^[3]; Gao, Yunzhi ^[3]; Yin, Geping ^[3]; Adzic, Radoslav R. ^[2]

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1. Harbin Inst. of Technology, Harbin (China); Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
2. Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
3. Harbin Inst. of Technology, Harbin (China)

Here, an accurate and efficient assessment of activity is critical for the research and development of electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Currently, the methodology combining the thin-film rotating disk electrode (TF-RDE) and potentiodynamic polarization is the most commonly used to pre-evaluate ORR activity, acquire kinetic data (i.e., kinetic current, Tafel slope, etc.), and gain understanding of the ORR mechanism. However, it is often neglected that appropriate potentiodynamic parameters have to be chosen to obtain reliable results. We first evaluate the potentiodynamic and potentiostatic polarization measurements with TF-RDE to examine the ORR activity of Pt nanoelectrocatalyst. Furthermore, our results demonstrate that besides depending on the nature of electrocatalyst, the apparent ORR kinetics also strongly depends on the associated potentiodynamic parameters, such as scan rate and scan region, which have a great effect on the coverage of adsorbed OH_ad/O_ad on Pt surface, thereby affecting the ORR activities of both nanosized and bulk Pt. However, the apparent Tafel slopes remained nearly the same, indicating that the ORR mechanism in all the measurements was not affected by different potentiodynamic parameters.

• Research Organization: Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
• Grant/Contract Number: SC00112704
• OSTI ID: 1333204
• Report Number(s): BNL-113209-2016-JA; R&D Project: MA510MAEA; KC0302010
• Journal Information: Electrocatalysis, Vol. 7, Issue 4; ISSN 1868-2529
• Publisher: Springer
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
ORR
TF-RDE
electrocatalyst
catalytic activity
potentiodynamic parameters