High activity and durability of a Pt–Cu–Co ternary alloy electrocatalyst and its large-scale preparation for practical proton exchange membrane fuel cells

The large-scale synthesis of catalysts with promising performance and durability for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is essential to the industrialization of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). Pt-based alloys prepared using the co-doping strategy have shown great promise. Herein, we report a co-doping tactic for producing high-performance Pt–Cu–Co ternary alloy catalysts on a mass scale. Cu and Co are doped into the material in one step and the co-doping of Cu and Co can optimize the electronic structure of Pt, thereby weakening the adsorption of oxygenated species with Pt to enhance ORR activity. The PtCu_0·72Co_0.01 and PtCu_0·72Co_0.01–10 g (scaled-up production) exhibit superior mass activity of 0.52 A mg_Pt⁻¹ and 0.43 A mg_Pt⁻¹, respectively, and peak power density in H₂-Air conditions of 1.15 W cm⁻² and 1.01 W cm⁻². Furthermore, the mass activity of catalysts was only attenuated by 8.3% and 9.5% after 30,000 cycles, indicating reasonably good durability.