Performance analysis of a non-platinum group metal catalyst based on iron-aminoantipyrine for direct methanol fuel cells

A highly active non-platinum group metals (non-PGMs) catalyst for oxygen reduction reaction(ORR) was synthesized by the sacrificial support method (SSM) developed at the University of NewMexico (UNM). SSM was modified in order to control hydrophobicity and morphology of transitionmetal-nitrogen-carbon material (M-N-C). As prepared catalyst was evaluated by scanning electronmicroscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) meth-ods. Electrochemical activity towards ORR and tolerance to methanol poisoning of Fe-N-C catalyst werestudied by rotating disk electrode (RDE). A performance analysis was carried out at the cathode of a directmethanol fuel cell (DMFC) comprising the variation of fuel concentration and temperature. A peak powerdensity of about 50 W g-1was recorded at 90oC in a wide range of methanol concentration (1-10 M). Itwas found that the non-PGM catalyst possesses an extraordinarily high tolerance to methanol crossover,with no significant decay of performance up to 10 M of alcohol concentration, making this materialstate-of-the-art in DMFC application. Chronoamperometric tests in DMFC at 90oC and 5 M methanolconcentration (100 h) showed also a suitable stability.