The Effect of Temperature and Concentration for Methanol Electrooxidation on Pt-Ru Catalyst Synthesized by Microwave Assisted Route

Abstract

At present, the methanol electrooxidation reaction (MOR) activities of carbon supported bimetallic Pt-Ru (M-PtRu@C) catalyst and monometallic Pt (M-Pt@C) catalysts prepared via microwave assisted polyol method and carbon supported Pt-Ru (P-PtRu@C) catalysts prepared by conventional polyol were examined to investigate the effect of the preparation method. These catalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction, X-ray photo electron spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). From TEM, the particle size of the M-PtRu@C catalyst was estimated as 3.54 nm. The MOR activities of these catalysts were examined at room temperature by cyclic voltammetry and chronoamperometry. Furthermore, stability measurements were performed on these catalysts to examine their long term stability. As a result, M-PtRu@C catalyst exhibited the best electrocatalytic activity and long term stability. Furthermore, MOR measurements at varying temperatures on M-PtRu@C catalyst showed turnover number reached its optimum value at 60 degrees C. At this temperature, M-PtRu@C catalyst could catalyze more methanol in the same period using the same number of sites compared to other applied temperatures.