Corrosion Study of Mesoporous Carbon Supports for Use in PEM Fuel Cells

摘要

In this study, the corrosion resistance of two ordered, high surface area, mesoporous carbons (OMCs) were evaluated for PEM fuel cell applications, in comparison with microporous Vulcan carbon (VC). Using a hexagonal mesoporous silica as a hard template, the OMCs were synthesized using sucrose and anthracene as the carbon precursors, denoted as OMC-S and OMC-A, respectively. The corrosion testing protocol involved a potential cycling-step sequence between 1.4 V for 50 s and 0.8 V for 10 s, for a total of 18 cycles, all in room temperature 0.5 M H_2SO_4. The corrosion resistance of the carbons is found to be VC ＞ OMC-A ＞ OMC-S, which correlates with their degree of graphitization, as determined by X-ray diffraction and thermogravimetric analysis.