Abstract
PtRu catalyst has long application history in electrochemical field due to the wide prospect in direct methanol fuel cells(DMFCs),but its performance remains to be improved further. There are usually two ways to enhance the catalytic activity of PtRu bimetallic catalyst.One is to add the third metal into alloy;the other is to improve the properties of carbon support.In this work,PtRu and PtRuNi nanoparticle clusters were electrochemically deposited on multi-walled carbon nanotubes(MWCNTs) through a three-step process,including an electrochemical treatment of MWCNTs, electro-oxidation of metal chloride to high valence of metal complex and an electro-conversion of PtRu and PtRuNi nanoparticle clusters on MWCNTs.The structure and elemental composition of the PtRu/MWCNTs and PtRuNi/MWCNTs electrodes were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM),energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy(EDX),X-ray polycrystalline diffraction(XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS).The electrocatalytic properties of the PtRu/MWCNTs and PtRuNi/MWCNTs electrodes for oxygen reduction reaction(ORR) and methanol oxidation were investigated by cycle voltammetry(CV) method and current-time(CT) method.The results showed that PtRuNi/MWCNTs electrode exhibited a high I_f/I_b(the forward anodic peak/the reverse anodic peak current) value and an appreciably improved resistance to carbon monoxide(CO) poisoning in methanol solution,so a beneficial effect on the oxygen adsorption in dilute sulphuric acid solution was observed.The high electrocatalytic activity and good stability of PtRuNi/MWCNTs was attributed to the synergetic effect of bifunctional catalysis,three dimension structure and oxygen functional groups which generated after electrochemical activation treatment on MWCNTs surface.The successful preparation of PtRu/MWCNTs and PtRuNi/MWCNTs nanocomposites opens a new path for efficient dispersion of promising electrocatalvsts in DMFCs.
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