The catalysts supported on metallized electrospun polyacrylonitrile fibrous mats for methanol oxidation

Polyacrylonitrile nanofibrous mats coated with continuous thin gold films (Au-PAN) have been fabricated by combining the electrospinning and electroless plating techniques. The Pt particles are electrodeposited on the Au-PAN fibers surface by multi-cycle CV method, and the Au-PAN decorated with Pt (Pt/Au-PAN) shows higher activity toward methanol electro-oxidation. The catalytic peak current for methanol oxidation on the optimum Pt/Au-PAN electrode can reach about 450 mA mg−1 Pt which is much larger than the catalytic peak current for methanol oxidation (118.4 mA mg−1 Pt) on the electrode prepared by loading commercial Pt/C on Au-PAN (Pt/C/Au-PAN). Further experiments reveal that the Pt/Au-PAN electrodes exhibit better stability and smaller charge transfer resistance than Pt/C/Au-PAN electrodes, which indicates that the Au-PAN may be developed as supporting material for catalyst. The microscopy images of the electrodes show that the Pt particles deposited on Au-PAN conglomerate into larger particles, and that the Pt/C catalyst loaded on the Au-PAN also exhibits conglomeration after stability test. The hydrogen adsorption–desorption experiments indicate that the electrochemical surface area of the Pt particles for the both kinds of electrodes has decreased after stability test.