SPring-8, the large synchrotron radiation facility

Prof. Masaharu Oshima's group at Synchrotron Radiation Research Organization in the University of Tokyo including Associate Prof. Yoshihisa Harada and Dr. Hideharu Niwa at Institute of Solid State Physics has developed a unique operando soft X-ray emission spectroscopy system for the first time and analyzed electronic structure of carbon-related cathode catalysts during operation of solid electrolyte fuel cells in collaboration with Assistant Prof. Yuta Nabae of Tokyo Institute of Technology and Dr. Tsutomu Aoki of Toshiba Fuel Cell Power Systems Corporation. They have successfully revealed that oxidized iron sites which exist in the cathode catalysts only during fuel cell operation have oxygen adsorption activities, while iron impurities in catalyst powder are in the metallic state showing almost no oxygen adsorption.

This article was published on the on-line version of Electrochemistry Communications which is a journal for International Society of Electrochemistry on August 27, 2013.

Publication:
"Operando Soft X-ray Emission Spectroscopy of Iron Phthalocyanine-based Oxygen Reduction Catalysts"
Hideharu Niwa, Hisao Kiuchi, Jun Miyawaki, Yoshihisa Harada, Masaharu Oshima, Yuta Nabae and Tsutomu Aoki.
Electrochemistry Communications (2013)