Microwave synthesis of an electrocatalyst based on CoFeRu for the oxygen reduction reaction in the absence and presence of methanol

•CoFeRu catalyst synthesized by a microwave-assisted method.•Material as ORR catalyst.•Potential use of this material as DMFC cathode.

In this work a simple and rapid synthesis method for obtaining (CoFeRu) based electrocatalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in the absence and presence of methanol is reported. The electrocatalyst is synthesized by microwave thermal heating method in a mixture of ethylene glycol/water as reaction media at 220 °C during 30 min, and 600 W of power radiation. The material is characterized by the rotating disk electrode technique. The electrocatalyst shows tolerance to the presence of 1 mol L−1 methanol during the ORR. The material is structurally characterized by X-ray diffraction and its chemical composition is determined by energy-dispersive spectroscopy analysis. The electrocatalyst is a potential candidate to be used as cathode in DMFC.