Bamboo shaped carbon nanotube supported platinum electrocatalyst synthesized by high power ultrasonic-assisted impregnation method for methanol electrooxidation and related density functional theory calculations

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with special forms may exhibit novel properties, which are different compared to conventional carbon nanotubes and may open a way for future applications. The nanotubes with a bamboo-like structure due to nitrogen doping have been well studied because of the increased attention for their bamboo shaped structure associated properties. In this work, bamboo shaped carbon nanotubes (BCNTs), synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method, were investigated for direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC). Small sized platinum nanoparticles (Pt NPs) were dispersed onto BCNT surface through a high power ultrasonic-assisted impregnation method in a short time. The structure and nature of the resulting Pt NP coated BCNT composites (Pt/BCNTs) were characterized by Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). Density functional theory (DFT) calculations of Pt NPs coated on different structural CNTs showed that inclusion of nitrogen improved the catalytic performance of carbon nanotubes toward methanol electrooxidation. High electrochemical activity of BCNTs supported Pt NPs was demonstrated by the electrochemical studies.