Intermediates migration in electrochemical oxygen reduction reaction

• Main Author: Tay, Yong Jun
• Other Authors: Li Shuzhou
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2022
• Subjects: Engineering::Materials::Energy materials
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/156274
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Oxygen Reduction Reaction (ORR) refers to the reduction half reaction whereby O2 is reduced to water or hydrogen peroxide. It is an important reaction as it is the most common oxidant for fuel cell cathodes due to the relative abundance of the material as compared to other materials, as well as a lack of pollutants from its byproducts. Due to its popularity, it is used abundantly for many purposes especially fuel cell and metal-air batteries. Using the Oxygen Reduction Reaction (ORR) in fuel cells, it helps to increase the efficiency of fuel cells as compared to other oxidant materials like Iron (Fe) and Manganese (Mn). Through the research in the current project, different materials were used as catalysts to find out more about ORR reactions with different metals, mainly with transition metals. Findings include that traditionally inert metals like Platinium (Pt) and Paladium (Pd) fare better in adsorption values between the metal and the oxygen atom in the OOH- molecules, as compared to Iron (Fe) and Manganese (Mn). However, there are limitation in the findings of the experiment done due to simulations done with only one differing factor, and that for real life uses, multiple factors affect adsorption levels as thus efficiencies of the reaction. Therefore, experiments with differing environmental factors need to be done prove the accuracy of the findings in this experiment.