Preparation and evaluation of cathode catalysts using coal materials for Fuel cell

Abstract

Fuel cells have been highly considered as an alternative power source in the near future. The low temperature-operated polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFC) have gain interest for use in automotive and stationary applications. For Pt-metal electrocatalysts, the problems have their high cost and poor availability. For this reason, the major challenges in the fuel cell research are to reduce the cost of the electrocatalyst either by decreasing the Pt loading or by developing a non-noble catalyst. As a strategy, we select coals as new Pt alternative catalysts. In this study, the catalysts are prepared with various conditions using coals and investigated their activity for the oxygen reduction reactivity as a cathode catalyst for PEFC using a rotating disk electrode technique.