Electrochemical Behavior and Morphology of Nano Catalyst for Fuel Cell: The effect of Ultrasonic and Microwave Techniques

Abstract

In this work, we succeed to prepare the Pt/C and PtRu/C composite electrodes by thermal, sonochemical and microwave methods. The synthesized catalysts are nano uniform particles of 1-6 nm diameters, deposited on pretreated Vulcan carbon 30-50 nm sized aggregates. The pH has important effect on reduction efficiency, the structure and particle-size distribution of synthesized catalyst. The ultrasonification gives smaller and more uniform nano particles than others. The electrochemical measurements of composite electrode in methanol showed that oxidation is irreversible and incompleted, the current density increase with pH and the ultrasonic irradiation gives the best catalytic performance.