Investigation of electrocatalytic activity and stability of Pt@f-VC catalyst prepared by in-situ synthesis for Methanol electrooxidation

The acidified, functionalized carbon black supported Pt nanocatalyst (Pt@f-VC) was prepared by the modified ethylene glycol reduction method. The functionalized carbon black serves as a stabilizer to prevent agglomeration of the platinum nanoparticles and ensures that Pt NPs have superficially greater dispersion. The prepared nanoparticles have been characterized by Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Raman Spectroscopy (RS) etc. XRD and TEM results showed that Pt NPs have uniform distribution on functionalized carbon support and the average particle sizes of Pt NPs were measured as 3.5 nm. Methanol electrooxidation reaction results showed that Pt@f-VC catalyst has higher catalytic activity and surface area than Pt@VC and commercial available Pt/C (Pt E-TEK).