The objective of the present study is to optimize the catalyst composition on the anode for the oxidation of CO containing fuel gases in a Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC). In a first step, the oxidation of adsorbed CO was studied on porous PtRu electrodes by means of cyclic voltammetry combined with on-line mass spectrometry. It was found that Pt 0.5 Ru 0.5 exhibits the highest negative shift for CO oxidation in comparison to pure Pt. Then, membrane electrode assemblies were fabricated using dispersed Pt, Pt 0.7 Ru 0.3 and Pt 0.5 Ru 0.5 as anode catalyst and pure Pt as cathode catalyst. The catalyst loading was 1 mg/cm 2 . The CO tolerance of the anode catalyst in such single cells was evaluated at 80 °C using H 2 containing defined amounts of CO (25–250 ppmv). Pt 0.5 Ru 0.5 showed the best performance compared with pure Pt similar to the results obtained with on-line mass spectrometry. For a Pt 0.5 Ru 0.5 anode catalyst no difference in power density was found between pure H 2 and H 2 with 100 ppmv CO up to current densities of 0.4 A/cm 2 and cell voltages of 0.75 V.
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V.M. Schmidt (1995) studied this question.