Elucidation of Fe-N-C electrocatalyst active site functionality via in-situ X-ray absorption and operando determination of oxygen reduction reaction kinetics in a PEFC

doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apcatb.2019.117929

Title: Elucidation of Fe-N-C electrocatalyst active site functionality via in-situ X-ray absorption and operando determination of oxygen reduction reaction kinetics in a PEFC

Abstract

In the past decade the notable effort placed on improving intrinsic electrochemical kinetics of platinum group metal (PGM)-free electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) has led to a significant improvement in both performance and understanding of this class of electrocatalysts. However, a limited amount of this development and understanding has been undertaken using operando electrochemical diagnostics at the membrane electrode assembly (MEA) level. In this work, the operando ORR kinetics on an atomically dispersed iron-nitrogen-carbon ((AD)Fe-N-C) PGM-free electrocatalyst have been examined to extract the reaction order and the activation energy of the ORR. The experiments were carefully designed to ensure the stability/predictability of the electrocatalyst during the data collection process and thus validate the relevance of the values obtained for the aforementioned parameters. A kinetic model that considers a potential-dependent availability of active sites (..theta..) is proposed. Active site availability is shown to be a function of both the change in the oxidation state (nR) and the redox potential at which the metal center transitions from a higher oxidation state to a lower one (ER). The resulting model fitting parameters for nR and (0.71 and 0.788 V, respectively) obtained from the analysis of operando data correlate well with thosemore »« less

Authors:

Osmieri, Luigi ^[1]; Ahluwalia, Rajesh K. ^[2]; Wang, Xiaohua ^[2]; Chung, Hoon Taek ^[3]; Yin, Xi ^[3]; Jeremy kropf, A ^[2]; Park, Jaehyung ^[2];

^[4];

^[4]; Zelenay, Piotr ^[3]; Myers, Deborah ^[2]; Neyerlin, Kenneth C. ^[1]

National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Lemont, IL (United States)
Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Publication Date:: 2019-07-09

Research Org.:: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Transportation Office. Fuel Cell Technologies Office

OSTI Identifier:: 1561590

Alternate Identifier(s):: OSTI ID: 1545258

Report Number(s):: NREL/JA-5900-73102
Journal ID: ISSN 0926-3373

Grant/Contract Number:: AC05-00OR22725; AC36-08GO28308

Resource Type:: Journal Article: Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:: Applied Catalysis B: Environmental

Additional Journal Information:: Journal Volume: 257; Journal Issue: N/A; Journal ID: ISSN 0926-3373

Publisher:: Elsevier

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Subject:: 25 ENERGY STORAGE; Fe-N-C catalyst; Polymer electrolyte fuel cell; Reaction order; Activation energy; Modeling; 30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION; polymer electrolyte fuel cell; reaction order; activation energy; modeling

Citation Formats


                    Osmieri, Luigi, Ahluwalia, Rajesh K., Wang, Xiaohua, Chung, Hoon Taek, Yin, Xi, Jeremy kropf, A, Park, Jaehyung, Cullen, David A., More, Karren L., Zelenay, Piotr, Myers, Deborah, and Neyerlin, Kenneth C. Elucidation of Fe-N-C electrocatalyst active site functionality via in-situ X-ray absorption and operando determination of oxygen reduction reaction kinetics in a PEFC.  United States: N. p., 2019. 
        Web.  doi:10.1016/j.apcatb.2019.117929.

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                    Osmieri, Luigi, Ahluwalia, Rajesh K., Wang, Xiaohua, Chung, Hoon Taek, Yin, Xi, Jeremy kropf, A, Park, Jaehyung, Cullen, David A., More, Karren L., Zelenay, Piotr, Myers, Deborah, & Neyerlin, Kenneth C. Elucidation of Fe-N-C electrocatalyst active site functionality via in-situ X-ray absorption and operando determination of oxygen reduction reaction kinetics in a PEFC.  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apcatb.2019.117929

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                    Osmieri, Luigi, Ahluwalia, Rajesh K., Wang, Xiaohua, Chung, Hoon Taek, Yin, Xi, Jeremy kropf, A, Park, Jaehyung, Cullen, David A., More, Karren L., Zelenay, Piotr, Myers, Deborah, and Neyerlin, Kenneth C. Tue .  
        "Elucidation of Fe-N-C electrocatalyst active site functionality via in-situ X-ray absorption and operando determination of oxygen reduction reaction kinetics in a PEFC".  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apcatb.2019.117929.  https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1561590.

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@article{osti_1561590,

  title        = {Elucidation of Fe-N-C electrocatalyst active site functionality via in-situ X-ray absorption and operando determination of oxygen reduction reaction kinetics in a PEFC},

  author       = {Osmieri, Luigi and Ahluwalia, Rajesh K. and Wang, Xiaohua and Chung, Hoon Taek and Yin, Xi and Jeremy kropf, A and Park, Jaehyung and Cullen, David A. and More, Karren L. and Zelenay, Piotr and Myers, Deborah and Neyerlin, Kenneth C.},

  abstractNote = {In the past decade the notable effort placed on improving intrinsic electrochemical kinetics of platinum group metal (PGM)-free electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) has led to a significant improvement in both performance and understanding of this class of electrocatalysts. However, a limited amount of this development and understanding has been undertaken using operando electrochemical diagnostics at the membrane electrode assembly (MEA) level. In this work, the operando ORR kinetics on an atomically dispersed iron-nitrogen-carbon ((AD)Fe-N-C) PGM-free electrocatalyst have been examined to extract the reaction order and the activation energy of the ORR. The experiments were carefully designed to ensure the stability/predictability of the electrocatalyst during the data collection process and thus validate the relevance of the values obtained for the aforementioned parameters. A kinetic model that considers a potential-dependent availability of active sites (..theta..) is proposed. Active site availability is shown to be a function of both the change in the oxidation state (nR) and the redox potential at which the metal center transitions from a higher oxidation state to a lower one (ER). The resulting model fitting parameters for nR and (0.71 and 0.788 V, respectively) obtained from the analysis of operando data correlate well with those from in situ X-ray absorption near edge structure measurements (nR = 0.57) and in situ cyclic voltammetry measurements (0.75 V < ER < 0.8 V) in the MEA environment. The resulting model provides an excellent fit of MEA performance across the range of pressures, temperatures, and potentials under which the data were collected.},

  doi          = {10.1016/j.apcatb.2019.117929},

  url          = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1561590},
  journal      = {Applied Catalysis B: Environmental},

  issn         = {0926-3373},

  number       = N/A,

  volume       = 257,

  place        = {United States},

  year         = {2019},

  month        = {7}

}

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Works referencing / citing this record:

Performance of Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cell Electrodes with Atomically Dispersed (AD) Fe-C-N ORR Catalyst
journal, January 2019

Ahluwalia, R. K.; Wang, X.; Osmieri, L.
Journal of The Electrochemical Society, Vol. 166, Issue 14
https://doi.org/10.1149/2.0851914jes

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Title: Elucidation of Fe-N-C electrocatalyst active site functionality via in-situ X-ray absorption and operando determination of oxygen reduction reaction kinetics in a PEFC

Abstract

Citation Formats

Performance of Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cell Electrodes with Atomically Dispersed (AD) Fe-C-N ORR Catalyst journal, January 2019

Performance of Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cell Electrodes with Atomically Dispersed (AD) Fe-C-N ORR Catalyst
journal, January 2019