Reduced graphene oxide/platinum supported electrocatalysts (Pt/RGO) were synthesized by employing a fast and eco-friendly microwave-assisted polyol process, which facilitated the simultaneous reduction of graphene oxide and formation of Pt nanocrystals. This system was tested for potential use as an anode material through the electrooxidation of methanol. Compared to the commercial carbon-supported Pt electrocatalysts, the Pt/ RGO showed an unprecedented CO poisoning tolerance, high electrochemical active surface area, and high catalytic mass activity for methanol oxidation reaction, demonstrated by increases of 110, 134, and 60%, respectively. We found that the high concentration of oxygen functional groups on reduced graphene oxide plays a major role on the removal of carbonaceous species on the adjacent Pt sites, underlining a synergetic effect between the oxygen moieties on graphene support and Pt nanoparticles. The present microwave assisted synthesis of Pt/RGO provides a new path to prepare electrocatalysts with excellent electrocatalytic activity and CO tolerance, which is of great significance in energy-related applications.

Summary The fire behaviour of a building façade is dependent on the overall system's performance, rather than the performance of the individual components. A façade system includes the cladding and the insulant's characteristics, but also the cavities, cavity barriers, mounting and fixings, substrate, and any singularities, such as window frames. This publication presents façade fire propagation test according to the ISO 13785‐1 standard, with additional heat release rate and gases analysis using FTIR. Tests have been performed on 9 different compositions of aluminium composite panels (ACM) with several insulants. For tested compositions, the cladding is the most important parameter driving global fire behaviour of façade mock‐ups. ACM‐PE‐based cladding systems gave very different results from the other solutions tested. This was especially visible in heat release rates, where fire intensity was very high, whatever the insulant used in the system. The contribution of the insulant was only remarkable in these tests during the decay phase. The cavity barrier was largely ineffectual in the 3 tests with ACM‐PE cladding, as the integrity of the cavity was not ensured.

A simple method is developed for characterizing the fire performance and toxicity of polymers using basically three but up to five parameters if necessary. The first parameter is related to fire spread and growth (corresponding to UL-94 and the FIGRA of SBI), the second parameter is the smoke yield (corresponding to the SMOGRA of SBI), the third parameter is the inefficiency of combustion (related to unburned hydrocarbon compounds and their toxicity as verified by tube furnace measurements), the fourth parameter is the mass of residue remaining and the fifth parameter is a heat release parameter for thermally thin conditions (the maximum mass loss rate in TGA multiplied by the effective heat of combustion deduced from the Cone Calorimeter tests). The developed methodology was used to compare brominated and halogen free fire retardants in formulations of PBT, PA66, PPE/HIPS and PC/ABS. It is confirmed that the studied environmentally friendly alternatives to brominated fire retardants offer comparable fire performance with lower toxicity.