Effect of annealing on activity and durability of PdCu alloy electrocatalysts

Anion exchange membrane fuel cells (AEMFCs) are promising devices for green energy generation. AEMFCs can use catalysts with ultralow loadings of critical raw materials. PdCu is a promising anodic Hydrogen Oxidation Reaction (HOR) electrocatalyst. It has been found that HOR electrochemical activity of PdCu is strongly related to the ratio between two phases present in the material, the Body Centered Cubic (BCC) and Face Centered Cubic (FCC). These two phases can be tailored by controlling the temperature during post production annealing. Still, despite the potential importance of this class of catalysts, little has been done to directly correlate PdCu alloy compositional and structural var iations with its electrochemical activity and durability. The experiment we propose aim to uncover this correlation, by proposing an in situ electrochemical XAS study of three different Pd:Cu electrocatalytical alloys prior and after the annealing.