Metal Aerogel Electrocatalysts for Methanol Oxidation Reaction in Direct Methanol Fuel Cells: A Comprehensive Review on Progress, Performance, and Future Perspectives

Direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) have attracted considerable attention recently for various applications ranging from portable ones to transportation. The efficiency of DMFCs depends on the kinetics of anodic and cathodic electrocatalysts. Due to sluggish anodic methanol oxidation reaction (MOR), DMFCs require an effective and bifunctional catalyst for promoting efficient MOR. The state-of-the-art MOR catalysts, such as Pt/C and Pt-Ru/C, have been shown to exhibit reasonable MOR activity; however, the insufficient mass activity and poor stability of carbon-supported catalysts have been a major limitation, requiring an alternative, efficient, electrocatalyst that exhibits high mass and specific activities. In addition, electrocatalysts without any carbon support (self-supported electrocatalysts) further mitigate their poor stability and therefore enhance their durability. In this regard, metal aerogel catalysts, which are entirely composed of metallic networks, recently attained special interest due to their specific advantages over conventional carbon supports, such as high catalyst utilization and improved electronic conductivity and stability. In this review, we systematically reviewed various metal aerogel catalysts developed for MOR since their first discovery in 2009. The metal aerogel demonstrated superior MOR performance relative to carbon-supported commercial catalysts, with enhancements ranging from 2-fold to 22-fold of mass activity. We also statistically compared the mass activity of metal aerogels with traditional carbon-supported, non-carbon-supported, and advanced shape-controlled catalysts and found that metal aerogels exhibited high mass activities compared to other catalyst systems. Therefore, we clearly establish that metal aerogel catalysts possess great potential as efficient MOR catalysts in DMFCs. In addition, we have provided several future research directions and strategies for further development of metal aerogel-integrated DMFC devices.