Facile fabrication of poly(o-methoxyaniline)-modified graphene hybrid material as a highly active catalyst support for methanol oxidation

Abstract

In this work, a facile electrochemical method for the fabrication of a novel poly(o-methoxyaniline)-modified graphene hybrid material (POMA/GE) as an efficient catalyst support for PtNi nanoparticles (NPs) on a glassy carbon (GC) electrode is reported. The morphology and structure of the PtNi/POMA/GE have been analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and Raman spectroscopy. Electrochemical techniques such as cyclic voltammetry, chronoamperometry, chronopotentiometry and impedance spectroscopy have been employed to investigate the electrocatalytic activities of the catalyst for methanol oxidation. It is found that PtNi/POMA/GE/GC catalyst exhibits excellent electrocatalytic activity toward methanol oxidation as compared to PtNi/GE/GC, PtNi/POMA/GC and PtNi/GC catalysts, showing that POMA/GE is a promising catalyst support material for use in methanol fuel cells. The enhanced performance is proposed to originate from the good dispersion of PtNi NPs on the POMA/GE film with a quasi-three-dimensional porous structure leading to the increase of the electrochemically active surface area (ECSA) as well as the synergic effect among the POMA, GE, and PtNi NPs.