Mixed Phase Pt-Ru Catalyst for Direct Methanol Fuel Cell Anode by Flame Aerosol Synthesis

Abstract

A spray-flame aerosol catalyzation technique was studied for producing Pt-Ru anode electrodes for the direct methanol fuel cell. Catalysts were produced as aerosol nanoparticles in a spray-flame reactor and deposited directly as a thin layer on the gas diffusion layer. The as-prepared catalyst was found to be a mixture of nanocrystalline, mostly unalloyed Pt and an amorphous phase mostly of Ru and to a lesser extent of Pt oxides on top of the crystalline phase. The flame-produced Pt1Ru1 demonstrated similar onset potential but ∼60% higher activity compared to commercially available Pt1Ru1/Vulcan carbon. The kinetics of methanol oxidation on the mixed phase catalyst was also explored by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy.

Generation and Sizing of Particles for Aerosol-Based Nanotechnology

“…Jensen et al 2000;Arabi-Katbi et al 2002;Jensen et al 2003), and alloy nanoparticles (e.g. Stark et al 2001;Keskinen et al 2004;Chakraborty et al 2005) for a range of applications. The most characteristic example of nanoparticle generation by flame reactors is titanium dioxide, which as a rutile is commonly used in pigments, and as an anatase is preferred in photocatalysis and as an effective UV absorber (Strobel and Pratsinis 2007).…”

“…For example, Stark et al (2001) demonstrated that flame-synthesized vanadia -titania nanoparticles exhibit high activity for the selective catalytic reduction of nitrogen monoxide by ammonia. Chakraborty et al (2005) produced mixed platinum-ruthenium nanoparticles by flame aerosol synthesis to catalyse the methanol oxidation reaction in direct methanol fuel cells. A thorough review on nanoparticle formation using flame synthesis techniques for fabricating catalytic materials is given by Strobel et al (2006).…”

Effect of pH on PtRu electrocatalysts prepared via a polyol process on carbon nanotubes

“…In addition to ICP-MS, the atomic ratios of Pt to Ru were also estimated from XPS spectra based on the following relationship [44]:…”

Characterization of highly porous nanoparticle deposits by permeance measurements

“…Such include, but not limited to, radioopaque but transparent dental fillers [6], efficient Li-ion anode materials [7], as well as durable sorbents for CO 2 sequestration [8]. A step further is in the utilization of such nanoparticles to form functional films, such as membrane filters [9], functional coatings [10], micro reactors [11], fuel cells [12,13], batteries [14], and gas sensors [15,16]. Often, these films are conveniently built by self-assembly through various deposition techniques.…”