Acta Phys. -Chim. Sin. ›› 2010, Vol. 26 ›› Issue (12): 3193-3198.doi: 10.3866/PKU.WHXB20101214

• ELECTROCHEMISTRY • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Preparation and Characterization of Platinum-Decorated Ru/C Catalyst with High Performance and Superior Poison Tolerance

GAO Hai-Li, LIAO Shi-Jun, ZENG Jian-Huang, LIANG Zhen-Xing, XIE Yi-Chun   

  1. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510641, P. R. China
  • Received:2010-05-25 Revised:2010-09-29 Published:2010-12-01
  • Contact: LIAO Shi-Jun E-mail:chsjliao@scut.edu.cn
  • Supported by:

    The project was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (20673040, 20876062) and National High-Tech Research and Development Program of China (863) (2009AA05Z119).

Abstract:

A platinum-decorated Ru/C catalyst with high platinum utilization efficiency, high performance, and high poisoning tolerance was prepared using a two-stage impregnation reduction method. We found that for anodic methanol oxidation the catalyst activity in terms of the Pt load was 1.9 and 1.5 times as that of Pt/C and PtRu/C alloy catalysts, respectively. These values are also higher than that of the commercial JM PtRu/C catalyst. The electrochemically active surface area of Ru@Pt/C was found to be 1.6 and 1.3 times as those of Pt/C and PtRu/C alloy catalysts, respectively. Furthermore, we found that the ratio of the forward peak current density (If) to the backward peak current density (Ib) reached 2.4, which was 2.7 times as that of the Pt/C catalyst. This implies that the Pt-decorated Ru/C catalyst possesses a high tolerance for the intermediate poisoning species. In addition, the stability of Ru@Pt/C was higher than that of Pt/C, PtRu/ C alloy and JM PtRu/C. The catalyst was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The core-shell structure of the catalyst was determined by XRD and TEM. The high performance and high poisoning tolerance of Ru@Pt/C during the anodic oxidation of methanol make it a promising electrocatalyst for direct methanol fuel cells.

Key words: Direct methanol fuel cell, Platinum-decorated Ru/C, Electrocatalyst, Methanol oxidation, Poison tolerance