Fabrication of the catalytic electrodes for methanol oxidation on electrospinning-derived carbon fibrous mats

Abstract

The carbon fibrous mats with high conductivity (50 S cm −1) formed by carbon nanofibers with an average diameter of ∼150 nm have been fabricated by thermally treating the electrospun polyacrylonitrile fibers. The platinum clusters are electrodeposited on the carbon nanofibrous mats (CFMs) by multi-cycle CV method. In contrast to the catalytic peak current of methanol oxidation on commercial catalyst (185 mA mg −1 Pt), the catalytic peak current on optimum Pt/CFM electrode reaches to ∼420 mA mg −1 Pt despite of the large size (50–200 nm) of the Pt clusters, revealing that the special structure of carbon fibrous mats is favorable to improve the performance of catalyst.