Abstract:
The oxygen reduction reaction at cathode side of PEM fuel cell is the limiting reaction. Therefore, catalysts play an important role on the performance of a fuel cell. The famous catalyst used in the fuel cell is Pt. However, it is very expensive leading to high production cost of the fuel cell. This work was carried out to prepare the non-Pt based electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction in a PEM fuel cell to reduce the production cost of fuel cell. The investigated parameters were types of supporter (gigantic and graphite), types of catalyst (cobalt, copper, nickel and gold), metal content (7.7-34.0 wt%), reduce temperature (350 and 600 degree Celsius), and ratio of metal alloy. The results showed that alloy metal between gold and nickel at atom ratio 1:1 on carbon gigantic supporter whereas gold content 34.0 wt% reduced in hydrogen atmosphere at 350 degree Celsius gave the highest catalytic efficiency. Current density is 28.9 mA/cm[superscript 2] and maximum power is 14.4 mW at potential 0.1 V. In addition, by analyzing property of electrode with TEM and SEM, particle size was 49nm and the particle distribution was good. By comparing with commercial platinum catalyst, it was found that the efficiency was still very low.