Acta Phys. -Chim. Sin. ›› 2011, Vol. 27 ›› Issue (01): 91-96.doi: 10.3866/PKU.WHXB20110128

• ELECTROCHEMISTRY AND NEW ENERGY • Previous Articles     Next Articles

N-Doped Amorphous Carbon Supported Pd Catalysts for Methanol Electrocatalytic Oxidation

ZHAO Yan-Chun, ZHAN Lu, TIAN Jian-Niao, NIE Su-Lian, NING Zhen   

  1. Key Laboratory for the Chemistry and Molecular Engineering of Medicinal Resources, Ministry of Education of China, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin 541004, Guangxi Province, P. R. China
  • Received:2010-06-03 Revised:2010-10-19 Published:2010-12-31
  • Contact: ZHAO Yan-Chun E-mail:yanchunzh@yahoo.cn
  • Supported by:

    The project was supported by the Guangxi Natural Science Foundation, China (2010GXNSFF013001, 0728043) and Guangxi Ministry of Education Foundation, China ([2006]26).

Abstract:

We prepared a new kind of N-doped amorphous carbon (CxN) by the calcination of poly-o-toluidine (POT) at 800 °C. The prepared CxN consisted of about 8.5% (w) nitrogen. Pd nanoparticles were deposited on CxN because of the inherent chemical activity arising from nitrogen incorporation. The Pd/CxN composite catalyst has a large electrochemically active surface area and it shows good electrocatalytic performance and stability toward methanol oxidation in alkaline media. All the results suggest that CxN can potentially find application in fuel cells.

Key words: Alkaline direct methanol fuel cell, Poly-o-toluidine, Calcination, N-doped amporphous carbon, Pd nanoparticle