Platinum-palladium nanoparticles-loaded on N-doped graphene oxide/polypyrrole framework as a high performance electrode in ethanol oxidation reaction

Abstract

Existing catalysts for ethanol oxidation in direct ethanol fuel cells (DEFC) are faced to significant challenges due to their poor performance and CO like intermediates poisoning tolerance at anode surface. Hence researchers are looking for new electrocatalysts in the ethanol oxidation. In this study, polypyrrole/N-doped graphene oxide (PPy/NGO) nanocomposite was prepared using in-situ polymerization method. Next the platinum-palladium (PtPd) was electrochemically decorated on PPy/NGO nanocomposite surface. In order to ensure the correct preparation of nanocomposite, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) analysis was carried out to peruse the chemical structure of the nanocomposite and also to investigate their morphology, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used. The morphology of nanocomposite shows that PPy has penetrated into the space between NGO plates. Disparate electrochemical techniques like cyclic voltammetry (CV), linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) and chronoamperometry (CA) were employed to evaluate the oxidation of ethanol. Results showed that PtPd/PPy/NGO exhibits improved electrocatalytic activity and stability for ethanol oxidation. Enhanced active surface area of the PtPd/PPy/NGO electrode (35.1 m2 g−1) contributes to increase in current density and decrease in over potential values in the ethanol oxidation as compared to PtPd electrocatalyst.