Electro-oxidation of methanol at multi-walled carbon nanotubes decorated with metal nanoparticles

Abstract

Fuel Cells (FC) employing methanol are extremely attractive as power sources for portable applications. One of the keys to the development of FC is to find a new and improved electrocatalyst. During methanol electro-oxidation on platinum (Pt) electrocatalyst, the catalytic surface is poisoned by strongly adsorbed reaction intermediates, mainly carbon monoxide that block the active sites. An approach to overcome this problem consists of alloying Pt with a second metal such as ruthenium (Ru). This allows improvement of the electrocatalytic activity of pure Pt. In the present study, we report on the integration of Pt-Ru with functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT-COOH) using techniques such as high resolution scanning electron microscopy (HR-SEM), cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS)