Comparative study for electrochemical and Single-Cell performance of a novel MXene-Supported Platinum–Ruthenium catalyst for Direct methanol fuel cell application

Abstract

• Novel formulation of bimetal embedded on MXene structure. • Latest two dimensional materials with ceramic and metal-like category. • Comparative study on electrochemical and DMFC single cell performance. • Promising anodic electrocatalyst for methanol oxidation reaction. • High electrochemical surface area and intrinsic activity leads to high performance. Direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) is one of the reliable sources of energy owing to numerous benefits it offers and its suitability for portable electronic applications. Therefore, this study aims to overcome the main issues confronting anodic electrocatalyst part by introducing the novel formulation of platinum–ruthenium (PtRu) bimetal into the 2D Ti 3 C 2 T x structure to boost the electrocatalytic activity and single-cell performance. A comparative study for electrochemical measurement and DMFC performance is conducted between as-synthesized electrocatalyst PtRu/Ti 3 C 2 T x and two other electrocatalysts, PtRu/C and Pt/C. This comparative study between electrocatalyst revealed that PtRu/Ti 3 C 2 T x exhibits the highest electrochemical surface area (55 m 2 g -1 ), electrocatalytic and intrinsic activity (449 mA mg PtRu −1 / 1.36 mA cm ECSA −2 ), carbon monoxide tolerance (1.56), and smallest charge-transfer resistance (2.66 Ω) compared with other electrocatalysts. Furthermore, the validation by DMFC single-cell test showed that PtRu/Ti 3 C 2 T x electrocatalyst improves the performance almost 70 % compared to the Pt/C electrocatalyst. This excellent electrochemical and single-cell performance of PtRu/Ti 3 C 2 T x electrocatalyst validates its potential to be one of the promising candidates for the anodic electrocatalyst in DMFC application.