Introduction
Today, platinum-based catalysts are the state-of-the-art material in fuel cell applications. The costs of these catalysts, however, contribute by 33 % to the overall costs of a fuel cell stack [1]. This makes it reasonable to search for cheap alternatives, especially non-precious metal catalysts (NPMC). Some metal nitrides (Me = W, Mo) and oxynitrides (Me = Ta, Zr, Nb) are promising regarding the observed onset potentials (up to 0.8 V vs. NHE) and could be of interest for further investigation. In this respect, however, the readers are referred to the original contributions (W2N [2], Mo2N [3], ZrOxNy [4–6], TaOxNy [7], NbOxNy [8, 9]).
This essay will focus on Me–N–C catalysts that are currently the best-performing NPMC for the ORR.
Recently, researchers from INRS-EMT and LANL published impressive volumetric current densities (230 A cm−3 at 0.8 V) for μ–Fe–N–C and long-term stability for (Fe,Co)–PANI–C (PANI or polyaniline), respectively [10, 11]. Unfortunately, the...
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Kramm, U.I. (2014). Fuel Cells, Non-Precious Metal Catalysts for Oxygen Reduction Reaction. In: Kreysa, G., Ota, Ki., Savinell, R.F. (eds) Encyclopedia of Applied Electrochemistry. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6996-5_204
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