Synthesis of hydrous ruthenium oxide supported platinum catalysts for direct methanol fuel cells

Hydrous ruthenium oxide supported platinum catalysts, i.e., Pt/RuO2 · xH2O, were synthesized by a feasible solution-phase method. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscope (TEM) investigations showed that the uniform Pt nanoparticles were highly dispersed on the support materials. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analyses revealed that RuO2 · xH2O has the structure of RuO2 · 0.25H2O. This support material is believed to be more active than Ru0 as part of Pt-Ru alloy catalysts. As proved by the cyclic voltammetry (CV) results, the Pt/RuO2 · xH2O electrode shows higher reactivity towards methanol than that of E-TEK Pt-Ru black electrode. This can be interpreted as that the remarkable boundaries of Pt nanoparticles to RuO2 · xH2O support provide active sites for complete methanol electro-oxidation.