In the article by Samuel St. John et al. the authors examined the effects of pH and carbonate on the hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR) and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) with Ru-Pt alloy catalysts and compared this against Pt monometallic catalyst. Ru-Pt alloys are of interest because they are the best performing HOR catalysts for alkaline …
One of the critical challenges facing fuel cells is degradation of the catalyst/support structure. A major mechanism of degradation is air/air (cathode/anode) startup/shutdown (SU/SD) degradation. Over time it can lead to significant corrosion of the carbon support structure, which in turn can lead to a loss of porosity of the catalyst layer, as well as …
The article by Blomgren provides an overview of lithium ion batteries, giving some background on their early development, then describing the current state of the technology, and finally going into their current deficiencies and prospects for likely improvement in the future. Early Lithium Ion Batteries The Li-ion battery was first developed by Sony in 1991, …
Article Summary: “The Development and Future of Lithium Ion Batteries” (2017) Read More »
The referenced article by Ross and Sokol in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society can be found here. In the article, the authors study the corrosion of carbon black in an alkaline system. Specifically, they use an electrode made from acetylene black which has been labelled using carbon-14 (14C), along with mass spectroscopy to determine the current efficiencies of …
Here I will try to briefly summarize an article published in 2016 in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society by Petek et al. entitled “Characterizing Slurry Electrodes Using Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy.” In the article, the authors investigate the behavior of slurry electrodes using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. In slurry electrodes, a slurry consisting of a liquid …
In the operation of a hydrogen fuel cell, one of the two principle reactions that takes place is the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). It is the reaction by which oxygen gains electrons. It is a more complex reaction than the hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR), with slower kinetics, making it the bottleneck in the overall redox …
An electrochemical cell converts chemical energy into electrical energy (or vice versa). In the case where electrical energy is generated (Galvanic cell), it is driven by a pair of spontaneous reduction-oxidation (redox) reactions. These reactions take place at the two electrodes, which are in contact with an electrolyte, forming two half-cells. An electrolyte is essentially …
