Invited Paper SS+EN-MoA1
High Throughput Discovery and Optimisation of Metal Alloy Electrocatalysts

Monday, November 10, 2014, 2:00 pm, Room 309

High-throughput synthesis and screening methodologies provide a powerful tool for the optimisation of alloy electrocatalysts. Libraries of thin film metal alloys have been synthesised using MBE sources to produce compositional gradient thin films in masked fields on micro-fabricated electrochemical screening chips. Examples will be given of ternary metal alloy catalysts designed as alternatives to platinum for the oxygen reduction reaction at the cathode in PEM Fuel Cells. The combination of ab-initio theory and high throughput synthesis and electrocatalyst screening is also shown to provide a powerful combination in the search for alternative catalysts to platinum for hydrogen oxidation at the anode. The approach has also been extended to the development of PdCu and PdSn alloys for the electro-reduction of nitrate, alloys which exhibit strong compositional dependencies which can be related to the redox behaviour of the surfaces. A full structural characterisation allows a direct comparison of catalytic activity to not only composition but also to the structure and phase of the alloy. In addition to measuring the total activity of the electrocatalysts, a secondary screen has been developed adapting the Differential Electrochemical Mass Spectroscopy (DEMS) method to assess the specificity of the reaction to produce the desired gas phase product.