Platinum nanoparticles supported on activated carbon fiber as catalyst for methanol oxidation

Activated carbon fiber (ACF) with high specific surface area has been used as support in the preparation of Pt nanoparticles electrocatalyst (Pt/ACF) for direct alcohol fuel cells. It is found that the Pt nanoparticles on ACF are highly and homogeneously dispersed with a narrow size distribution in the range of 1.5–3.5 nm with an average size of 2.4 nm. In comparison with the commercial E-TEK Pt/C catalyst, the Pt/ACF catalyst exhibits much higher catalytic activity for methanol, ethanol and isopropanol oxidation, which are about 2.4 times as high as that of the former. The Pt/ACF catalyst is observed to be significantly more stable during the constant current density polarization and continuous cyclic voltammetry in comparison with Pt/C catalyst. Both the uniform dispersion of Pt nanoparticles and strong interactions between Pt nanoparticles and ACF are of benefit to achieve the performance improvement of Pt/ACF catalyst.