Electrodeposition fabrication of pore-arrayed hydrogen tungsten bronze as support of platinum nanoparticles for electrocatalytic oxidation of methanol oxidation

• Pore-arrayed HxWO3 was fabricated using PS spheres as template by electrodepostion.
• Pt nanoparticles can be stabilized on pore-arrayed HxWO3.
• Pt supported by pore-arrayed HxWO3 exhibits excellent activity toward methanol oxidation.

Pore-arrayed hydrogen tungsten bronze (p-HxWO3) is fabricated with polystyrene as template by electrodeposition and used as the support of platinum nanoparticles as electrocatalyst (Pt/p-HxWO3) for methanol oxidation. The surface morphology, structure, and compositions of p-HxWO3 and Pt/p-HxWO3 are characterized with scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The activity and stability of Pt/p-HxWO3 toward methanol oxidation are evaluated in 0.5 M H2SO4 + 1.0 M CH3OH solution by cyclic voltammetry (CV), chronoamperometry (CA), and chronopotentiometry (CP), and cell discharge test. The characterizations from SEM, XRD, TEM, and FTIR demonstrate that p-HxWO3 contains uniform pores of about 200 nm and the platinum particles can be uniformly distributed with an average size of 3.01 nm on it. The electrochemical evaluations indicate that Pt/p-HxWO3 exhibits better activity and stability toward methanol oxidation than the platinum supported by non-pore arrayed HxWO3.