Executive Summary : | Hydrogen is considered a promising candidate in the quest for an environmentally benign sustainable energy system and has the potential to reduce greenhouse gases. Platinum (Pt) is an important catalyst material and is being extensively used for electrochemical processes such as electrocatalyst for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFC), direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) etc. The major hurdle for commercialization of these electrochemical processes are high cost and low availability of Pt. Therefore, many efforts are being devoted to replace the Pt-based electro-catalyst with either non-precious metals or non-metals. However, none of the alternative catalysts surpass the electrochemical performance of Pt based catalysts, thereby hampering their replacement. In this backdrop, a new class of multi-component alloys (MCAs) have gained an intense attention for the hydrogen production (as electrolysers) and as electrocatalyst for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). One of the main aspects of MCAs is their massive compositional configurations that vary from simple crystalline to high entropy structures. The multicomponent combination of metals as nanostructures could have great implications for the above said applications due to their higher surface to volume ratio, unique tunable physicochemical properties, and tailorable active sites for energy-related applications. Compared with bulk MCAs, the nature of nanostructured MCAs, the composition, size, shape and performance in terms of their activity, selectivity and durability are worth investigating in depth to impact the hydrogen economy and revolution. It may be noted that the preparation of MCAs in a phase pure manner (avoiding the formation of several single metallic and bimetallic alloys/core-shell structures as impurities) via bottom-up chemical synthetic strategies could be quite challenging. The present proposal is aimed at filling this technology gap. Here we wish to utilize our expertise in the synthesis of several metallic nanoparticles, bimetallic alloys and core-shell structures and extend the same to make multicomponent alloys. Quite gratifyingly we have had some success in making few trimetallic alloys in a phase pure manner. Our initial results indicate that lab synthesized ternary element alloy (CoMnPt and CoMnSn) catalytic systems shows good electrochemical characteristics compared to its single (Co) or binary element (PtMn, CoPt) systems. These encouraging results suggest their potential application as electrocatalyst for PEMFCs and DMFCs. |