Precious metal free tunable manganese oxides for sustainable anion exchange membrane fuel cells
Abstract Eliminating platinum group metals from cathode catalysts in low-temperature polymer electrolyte fuel cells is highly important for addressing the sustainability challenge fuel cell systems face. Here, we propose modifying the electronic structure of Li-intercalated layered Mn-oxide as a cathode catalyst to overcome the activity/stability tradeoff in anion exchange membrane fuel cells. To achieve this goal, we deploy a precious metal free catalyst design strategy involving atomically dispersed p -block metal Sn doped in Li 2 MnO 3 , in addition to d -block metals, which has been poorly explored in the research thus far. Operando X-ray absorption spectroscopy and rapid freeze-quench 119 Sn Mössbauer methodology are employed to visualize the catalytic dynamics, revealing that part of Mn 4+ ions are converted into Mn 3+ ions, whereas Sn 4+ ions remain unchanged during the oxygen reduction reaction. Under H 2 /O 2 conditions, anion exchange membrane fuel cells employing Li 2 Mn 0.9 Sn 0.1 O 3 cathodes achieve peak power densities above 1.0 W cm -2 geo and 3.96 W mg -1 Pt . This work demonstrates the beneficial modulation of the electronic structure through p -block metal substitution in earth-abundant Mn-enriched oxide materials.
Authors
- Yunhui Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1687-1938)
- Lin Zhuang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5642-6735)
- Peter Strasser (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3884-436X)
- Hainan Wei
- Wang Hay Kan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1663-2999)
- Chih‐Wen Pao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7681-4391)
- Jiwei Ma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4209-7667)
- Lijun Sui (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1457-5118)
- Menghao Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7926-5113)
- Xuning Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-7353-842X)
- Wei‐Hsiang Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9503-0373)
- Jiuyi Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-3544-8150)
- Nicolás Alonso‐Vante (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6311-9258)
- Toshinari Koketsu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2796-7866)
- Jing Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4193-637X)
- Na Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-2523-333X)
- Chuangxin Ge (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1984-1283)
- Wen Yin
- Shengjie Zhang
- Jiayi Li
- Chenlong Gao
- Xiong Zhang
- Juping Xu
- Xuepeng Zhong
- Yang Zhao
Institutions
- Tongji University (CN)
- Zhejiang Normal University (CN)
- National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (TW)
- Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (CN)
- Shanghai Jiao Tong University (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Wuhan University (CN)
- National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center (TW)
- Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids (DE)
- China Spallation Neutron Source (CN)
- Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (CN)
- Institute of High Energy Physics (CN)
- Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy (CN)
- State Key Laboratory of Catalysis
- Technische Universität Berlin (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2026-10-09
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-78358-3
- Primary Topic
- Electrocatalysts for Energy Conversion
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00