Study of an anti-poisoning catalyst for methanol electro-oxidation based on PAn–C composite carriers

The polyaniline–XC-72R carbon composites (PAn–C) are synthesized by in-situ chemical polymerization at low temperature. As a catalyst carrier we deposited platinum on the composite using chemical deposition. The conformation of carriers and catalysts is studied by SEM and FTIR. Methanol oxidation on the catalyst-modified electrode has been measured by cyclic voltammetry (CV) in comparison with the traditional Pt/C focusing on the attenuation of current in a period of time. It is proved that the CO anti-poisoning ability increase may be due to the synergistic effects between the carrier and the catalyst. We get the result that when the mass ratio of PAn to C is 0.25 in composite, the onset potential is the lowest, which indicates the best catalysis. Measured by XRD and SEM, it indicated that the size of Pt particles was decreased and that the dispersion is better when PAn exists in the composite carriers.