“The durability of alloy catalysts is a big issue in the field,” said Junrui Li, a graduate student in chemistry at Brown University and the paper’s lead author. “It’s been shown that alloys perform better than pure platinum initially, but in the conditions inside a fuel cell the non-precious metal part of the catalyst gets oxidized and leached away very quickly.”
To address this leaching problem, Li and his colleagues developed alloy nanoparticles with a specialized structure. The particles have a pure platinum outer shell surrounding a core made from alternating layers of platinum and cobalt atoms. That layered core structure is key to the catalyst’s reactivity and durability, says Shouheng Sun, professor of chemistry at Brown and senior author of the paper.
Jubilee Metals Group plc (LON:JLP) is a diversified metals recovery company, focusing on the reprocessing of historical mine waste and surface materials. Their projects in South Africa include the Hernic Platinum Project, DCM Platinum & Chrome Project and the PlatCro Platinum Project.