Well dispersed Pt nanoparticles on commercial carbon black oxidized by ozone possess significantly high electro-catalytic activity for methanol oxidation

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In this paper, the electro-catalytic methanol oxidation on the commercial carbon black treated with ozone at different temperatures to support platinum (Pt) nanoparticles was investigated. The necessary techniques like transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Raman spectroscopy, nitrogen adsorption-desorption techniques, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) have been used to discovery the composition, morphology and structure of the catalysts. The electro-catalytic methanol oxidation activity and durability of the catalysts was estimated by the cyclic voltammetry and chronoamperometric techniques. The results indicated that the platinum nanoparticles with average sizes of 2.04 nm can be uniformly dispersed on the surfaces of carbon black oxidized by ozone at 140 °C. In the meanwhile it has significantly high electro-catalytic activity for methanol oxidation. This phenomenon is attributed to the fact that ozone oxidation increase the content of oxygen-containing groups on the carbon black, which is helpful for improving the dispersion and decreasing the size of platinum nanoparticles. Oxygen-containing groups play a critical role in enhancing the performance of methanol electro-oxidation.