Fuel cell technology: Nano-engineered multimetallic catalysts

Fuel cells represent an attractive technology for tomorrow's energy vector because hydrogen is an efficient fuel and environmentally clean, but one of the important challenges for fuel cell commercialization is the preparation of active, robust and low-cost catalysts. The synthesis and processing of molecularly-capped multimetallic nanoparticles, as described in this report, serves as an intriguing way to address this challenge. Such nanoparticles are exploited as building blocks for engineering the nanoscale catalytic materials by taking advantage of diverse attributes, including monodispersity, processability, solubility, stability, capability in terms of size, shape, composition and surface properties. This article discusses recent findings of our investigations of the synthesis and processing of nanostructured catalysts with controlled size, composition, and surface properties by highlighting a few examples of bimetallic/trimetallic nanoparticles and supported catalysts for electrocatalytic oxygen reduction.