Mesoporous tungsten carbide-supported platinum as carbon monoxide-tolerant electrocatalyst for methanol oxidation

This paper reports a CO-tolerant electrocatalyst, mesoporous tungsten carbide-supported platinum (Pt/m-WC), for methanol oxidation. The support m-WC was synthesized by evaporation-induced triconstituent co-assembly method in which phenol formaldehyde polymer resin was used as the carbon precursor, tungsten hexachloride as the tungsten precursor and an amphiphilic triblock copolymers (P123) as the template. Nano-sized platinum particles were loaded on the m-WC to prepare Pt/m-WC. The structure and morphology of the prepared electrocatalyst were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), and its activity toward methanol oxidation and its tolerance for CO were determined by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and chronopotentiometry (CP). It is found that the m-WC carburized at 900 °C(m-WC-900) has a larger specific surface area (182 m2 g−1) and a appropriate crystal structure compared to the m-WC carburized at 800 °C or 1000 °C, and thus is better as the support of platinum. The prepared Pt/m-WC-900 exhibits higher activity toward methanol oxidation and better tolerance for CO than Pt/Vulcan XC-72. The onset potential of CO electro-oxidation on Pt/m-WC is 0.449 V, which is more negative than that on Pt/Vulcan XC-72 (0.628 V).

► WC as support of platinum electrocatalyst.
► CO-talerant electrocatalyst for methanol oxidation.
► Evaporation-induced triconstituent co-assembly builds mesoporous WC.
► Carburization temperature affects pore structure and electrocatalytic activity of WC.